An important instrument to reveal the life of Aomi - Chromatography

It is probably strange to mention that chromatographs are not suitable for people who are not involved in chemistry, but the term "chromatography" has been around for nearly 100 years, and the use of commodity chromatographs in the sense of modern science and technology It has also been nearly half a century. The development of chromatographic methods and chromatograph science and technology, for the growth of the national economy, for the health and longevity of the people, especially for the revealing of life Aomi.

When the Russian botanist Zwittitzwitt studied the composition of plant leaves at the University of Warsaw in Poland in 1903, he skillfully used calcium carbonate as a sorbent to separate the petroleum ether extract of the dried leaves of the plant. He loaded the dried calcium carbonate powder. Into a slender glass tube, then pour the petroleum ether extract of the plant leaves onto the calcium carbonate in the tube, the pigment in the extract is adsorbed in the calcium carbonate in the upper part of the tube, and then washed with pure petroleum ether. The adsorbed pigment is desorbed, and then six bands of three colors of green and yellow are formed on the calcium carbonate in the tube, and chlorophyll, lutein and carotene are separated. At that time, Zwitt called this ribbon "chromatography", and Zvitt called his method called chromatography, or later called this method liquid-solid chromatography. In this method, the glass tube is called a "column", calcium carbonate is called a "stationary phase", and pure petroleum ether is called a "mobile phase." This is the enlightenment and beginning of using chromatographic methods to explore life phenomena.

No one has paid attention to this great invention for more than 20 years after Zwitt proposed the concept of chromatography. It was not until 1931 that Kuhn of Germany repeated some of Zwitt's experiments to separate α-, β-, and γ-carotene with alumina and calcium carbonate. Since then, more than 60 such methods have been isolated by this method. Pigment, he separated B2 from vitamin B in 1938 and won the 1938 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his outstanding research. This is a preliminary attempt to explore life phenomena and understand the composition of biological objects using chromatographic methods. Then in the 1940s and early 1950s, the British biochemist Martin et al. created a gas-liquid chromatography using a gas as a mobile phase as a mobile phase in the important composition of fatty acids and fatty amines in graduate students, thus obtaining 1952. Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the year. In 1958, American biochemists Stein and Moore developed an amino acid analyzer to determine the molecular structure of ribonuclease. Later, the amino acid analyzer became an important tool for studying protein and enzyme structure. Stein and Moore obtained 1972. Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

From the above historical events, it is seen that the chromatographic separation method and chromatograph appear to reveal the life of the mystery. At the end of the 20th century, the advancement of the Human Genome Project and the vigorous development of proteomics in the early 21st century, chromatographic methods and chromatographs have made encouraging contributions.

In June 2000, the Human Genome Project was announced to have completed its work sketch. Therefore, scientists believe that life sciences have entered the era of functional genomics (post-genome). In the functional genomic era, biologists’ research focuses on revealing life. All genetic information is transferred to studies of biological function at an overall level. On February 12, 2001, scientists from China, the United States, Japan, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom and the United States Celera jointly announced the human genome map and preliminary analysis results. One of the main reasons for this plan to be completed ahead of time is the use of a high-throughput array capillary electrophoresis system, which is also an instrument in the field of chromatographs.

From the genomic DNA sequence, it is not possible to answer the expression time, expression amount, post-translational processing and modification of the gene, and their subcellular distribution. These problems, which cannot be solved in the genome, are expected to find answers in the Proteome study. There are 30,000 to 50,000 proteins in the cells studied. Currently, two-dimensional electrophoresis used in proteomic research can only distinguish 2000 to 3000 protein spots. In the proteome analysis, high performance liquid chromatography is expected to be used for pre-separation, that is, using two-dimensional HPLC, and the first direction is size exclusion chromatography. Therefore, two-dimensional electrophoresis and high performance liquid chromatography will become important separation tools for proteomics. So the chromatograph will make a greater contribution to revealing the mysteries of life in depth.

The centuries-old history of chromatography has shown that chromatographs are a powerful tool for uncovering the mysteries of life. Chromatographs generally include gas chromatographs, high performance liquid chromatography, ion chromatography, supercritical fluid chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, and the like. The first two chromatographs are the most widely used and highly successful instruments for analyzing complex mixtures of gases, liquids, and solids. Ion chromatography is also becoming increasingly popular in various fields. The use of supercritical fluid chromatographs is small and not widespread. Capillary electrophoresis is a kind of high-efficiency separation instrument developed after the 1980s, which has great application prospects in the field of life science.