Bøger i Chromatographia CE-series serien

During the 1980's the analysis of pharmaceuticals was dominated by the use of High Perfor­ mance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Other separative techniques such as Gas Chromato­ graphy and Thin Layer Chromatography offered alternatives but their quantitative capabili­ ties and/or solute range could not approach that of HPLC. The majority of pharmaceuticals are ionic and it would be reasonable to assume that electrophoresis may be useful in the analysis of pharmaceuticals. However, the electrophore­ tic instruments available in the 1980's were labour intensive and employed post-separation detection procedures. During the late 1980's and early 1990's extensive research was con­ ducted into the possibilities of conducting electrophoretic separations in capillaries. This approach allowed on-line detection and could be performed on fully automated equipment. This research led to the advent of modern day capillary electrophoresis (CE) instruments which offer similar performance and automation levels to that of HPLC. Research was also focused on developing applications for CE and particular attention was paid to applications within the pharmaceutical analysis area. These applications proved that CE could be applied to a wide range of drug types including water insoluble and neutral compounds. The ability to achieve efficient chiral separations of drugs also increased the popularity of the technique. CE with indirect UV detection has become established as a simple and effective alternative to ion-exchange chromatography for the determination of small inorganic or organic ions.

Carbohydrates are ubiquitous. They come as monomers, oligomers and polymers with a startling variety of chemical, physical and material properties. They affect almost every as­ pect of human live. For example they are an essential part of our nutrition. Cellulose, a car­ bohydrate polymer, acts as a central material in civilization: as building material for housing and as paper for written communication. Scientifically, the interest in carbohydrates ranges from structural elucidation of simple carbohydrates to fundamental biochemical processes such as photosynthesis and glycolysis. Always, a deeper understanding of a particular aspect of carbohydrate chemistry was accompanied by new methods of measuring and characteri­ zing this class of molecules. During the last decades a better understanding of the roles of carbohydrates in biochemi­ cal pathways developed. It turned out, that carbohydrates attached to proteins in glycoprote­ ins are involved in a number of molecular recognition and targeting processes. This lead to a new research field: Glycobiology. However, unlike for proteins or nucleic acids, there is at this time no consistent theory how chemical composition and structure controls function and inherent information. In order to develop the database, on which new theories and scientific hypothesis are founded, analytical methods to separate compounds with an enormous struc­ tural diversity and only minor differences in chemical or physical properties has to be deve­ loped, preferably using only minute quantities.

During the last decade, capillary electrophoresis has been developed into a very powerful analytical technique, which has many advantages over conventional slab gel techniques. The improvement is comparable to the one occuring earlier in the field of chromatography, with the introduction of the high performance technology. How important this technique has be­ come, is reflected by the shear volume of papers published each month; as well as a dozen of books already published on this subject. One of the most important conferences in the field, the "International Symposium on High Performance Capillary Electrophoresis" attracts now nearly thousand people every year. As capillary electrophoresis can be applied to many different analytical problems, a spe­ cialization is unavoidable. This evolution is also reflected in the development of instrumen­ tation: whereas the first devices were designed for all possible applications, new instruments are now built, that are specialized for one particular task, e.g. DNA analysis. I very much welcome the decision of the series editor and the publisher, to edit a series ofspecialized books, covering all aspects of capillary electrophoresis. Having worked on the electrophoretic separation of DNA for many years, I am convinced that there are so many different aspects on this issue that they deserve a whole book on their own. Therefore, I was happy to agree when being asked to edit this book.

short summary of what is going on. In the almost 20 years since its first appearance, Capil­ Writing a monograph like this is a lot of work, even more lary Electrophoresis (CE) has become a standard analy­ than I anticipated. Luckily, I could fall back on the tical separation technique in many laboratories. CE is theoretical and practical experience with CE obtained in now used routinely in applications ranging from in­ our laboratory over the past years. Therefore, I am in­ organic ion determinations to genetic analysis. After the depted to all who contributed to this experience. In the first development studies in R&D groups in the first 10 first place my (former) colleagues Hans Poppe and Jo­ years, and the breakthrough of commercial instruments han Kraak should be mentioned. They started the CE in the second decade, CE has now become a member of work in Amsterdam and teached me a lesson or two the establishment of analytical techniques. This seemed about it later. Together we formed maybe not the most a good moment to summarize the instrumental possibi­ famous but certainly the best-spirited CE research group lities of the technique, its accomplishments and weak in the world. Thanks are also due to the hard-working lab points. The result of this thought is in front of you.