High-efficiency preparative-scale reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic purification of 14C-labelled antibiotics

Abstract The 14 C-labelled antibiotics [2- 14 C]mupirocin, and [thienyl-3- 14 C]temocellin cannot be satisfactorily purified on a small scale by conventional methods of chromatography or recrystallisation. Their purification was successfully achieved by high-efficiency preparative-scale reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. The purifications employed 250 mm × 10 mm I.D. or 22 mm I.D. stainless-steel columns packed with Merck LiChrosorb RP-18 (10μm) stationary phase which were eluted with aqueous buffer solutions at flow-rates of 10–25 ml min -1 using conventional analytical instrumentation.