Counter-Current Chromatography for High Throughput Analysis of Natural Products

Counter-current chromatography (CCC) is a unique support-free liquid-liquid partition chromatography winning wide applications in the separation of various components from natural or synthetic mixtures. It has been one of the prime methods for isolating compounds from Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCM) and other comprehensive natural products. Although early CCC models produced a long-standing false image that CCC is a time-consuming technique, rapid and high-performance CCC devices and methods for high throughput analysis of natural mixtures have been advanced. For instances, multi-channel CCC, dual CCC, elution-extrusion CCC, and solvent simplification protocols can provide high throughput CCC analysis and produce high purity of compounds or large natural product libraries for drug discovery. This review summarizes the recent advancements of CCC in the high throughput analysis of natural product with an emphasis on the developments of instruments and methods.