Integrated biological-physicochemical system for the identification of antitumor compounds in fermentation broths.

A rapid, integrated biological-physicochemical system for the identification of six major classes of antitumor compounds in fermentation broths is described. The system relies upon preliminary fractionation of the fermentation broth by liquid-solid extraction, gradient high-performance liquid chromatography with diode-array spectrophotometric detection of the compounds and automated bioassay. The previously stored UV-VIS spectra of the biologically active peaks are used for identification. Confirmation of compound identity is by thermospray liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. The method has been applied to representatives of the bleomycin, streptonigrin, echinomycin, chromomycin, actinomycin and anthracycline groups.