Evaluation of the lipophilicity of bile acids and their derivatives by thin-layer chromatography and principal component analysis.

The lipophilic character of bile acids and their glyco- and tauro-conjugates was studied. The classical R(Mo) values were measured by means of reversed thin-layer chromatography using a mixture of methanol-water as the solvent system and compared with the factors scores obtained by principal component analysis based also onto the TLC-retention data. The reliability of the factor scores values as lipophilic indices are shown by their high correlation with the classical R(Mo) values. In addition, a better correlation was observed between scores corresponding to the first principal components and the partition coefficients (log P) of bile acids. Finally, the "lipophilicity chart" described by the first two components has the effect of separating compounds from each other most effectively from the congeneric aspect point of view.