Characterisation of candicidin and levorin by means of high-performance size-exclusion liquid chromatography

Abstract

A bimodal high-performance size-exclusion liquid chromatographic method for the comparison of aromatic heptaene macrolide antibiotics has been developed. Candicidin from different sources and levorin were found to contain components of high relative molecular mass but with different elution patterns. Ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry of fractions collected during the size-exclusion chromatography demonstrated that both the components of high relative molecular mass and the constituents that were retained by adsorption to the packing material contain a heptaene moiety. The latter was found to be identical with the free aromatic heptaene macrolides previously characterised by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography.