One-dimensional thin-layer chromatographic separation of phospholipids and lysophospholipids from tissue lipid extracts.

A modified one-dimensional thin-layer chromatographic procedure is presented for the separation from tissues of five phospholipids (phosphatidylserine, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylcholine and sphingomyelin) and three lysophospholipids (lysophosphatidylserine, lysophosphatidylethanolamine and lysophosphatidylcholine). This is achieved by simple involvement of 0.4% ammonium sulphate in silica gel H and of acetone in a developing solvent as chloroform-methanol-acetic acid-acetone-water (40:25:7:4:2, v/v). The procedure is simple and the separation is reproducible. The weakness of this method is the partial degradation of phosphatidylethanolamine to lysophosphatidylethanolamine, but a method to prevent this degradation is also presented.