Hyphenated NMR methods in natural products research, Part 2: HPLC-SPE-NMR and other new trends in NMR hyphenation.

This review describes the principles and performance of a novel and highly promising hyphenated technique, HPLC-SPE-NMR, which is based on post-column analyte trapping by solid-phase extraction. The analytes are subsequently eluted from the SPE cartridges using deuterated solvents. This indirect HPLC-NMR hyphenation offers numerous advantages compared to direct HPLC-NMR methods. Multiple trapping leads to a dramatic increase of analyte amounts available for NMR, enabling acquisition of high-quality 2D NMR data within a short time. Other new developments, including combination of solenoidal coil capillary flow-probes with microflow HPLC, are also discussed. Fast extract dereplication using these techniques enables focusing of isolation efforts on truly novel and promising natural products, based on precise structural data obtained with crude extracts or fractions.