FLEXING FLAX DATA: Clara Olivia from Martin Reaney’s lab at the University of Saskatchewan looks at flax peptide peaks separated using a high-speed Chromolith HPLC column from Merck Millipore.COURTESY OF YOUN YOUNG SHIMWhen Martin Reaney began to screen chemicals extracted from hundreds of seeds in Canada’s national flaxseed collection, he wasn’t planning on using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). A lipidomics expert at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Reaney wanted to analyze genetic variations in the seeds’ hydrophobic cyclic peptides, known as cyclolinopeptides (CLPs). Although well suited for separating CLPs, his lab’s best HPLC method took about 30 minutes per sample. With 380 different genetic lines of flaxseed on hand, each of which needed to be run multiple times, Reaney thought it would be impossible to analyze the thousands of samples using liquid chromatography because it would tie up his lab’s HPLC instrument for months.
Felicia Gok, then a graduate student in Reaney’s lab who had previously worked as a sales rep for HPLC columns, suggested that Reaney try swapping the lab’s traditional HPLC column—one filled with fully porous, spherical silica beads 5 microns in diameter—for a silica monolithic column, a newer column type which features a spongelike internal structure that can increase the speed of HPLC analyses. The monolithic column delivered on its promise: Reaney’s lab was able to slash their CLP separation time by 80 percent, enabling them to analyze up to 60 samples per 8-hour workday, he says.
Monolithic columns aren’t the only newer type of column accelerating the pace of HPLC separations. Several advances in column-packing technology are also helping researchers save time, increase productivity, and ...
