Preparative isolation of cerebrosides (galactosyl and glucosyl ceramide)

An improved method for isolating cerebrosides from natural sources is described. The method is particularly suited to large scale work and can be adapted to the isolation of sphingolipids that are less polar than the gangliosides. It is based on the use of sodium sulfate to absorb the water from chloroform-methanol tissue extracts, the use of triiodide to cleave the ether linkage of plasmalogens, and the use of alkaline methanolysis to cleave the ester linkages of the glycerolipids. The final separation of the lipids is done with a silica gel column.