ABSTRACT
High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) has become the method of choice for the separation, purication, identication, and quantication of phytosteroids. We briey review the diversity and biological signicance of the various classes of phytosterols, phytosteroids (brassinosteroids, bufadienolides, cardenolides, ecdysteroids, steroidal saponins, steroidal alkaloids, vertebrate-type steroids, and withanolides), and steroid-related triterpenoids (cucurbitacins). We summarize the HPLC systems (predominantly reversed-phase [RP]) that have been applied to the separation of these molecules and consider how the potential of HPLC is being extended for identication and dereplication by coupling the chromatographic separation (off-line or on-line) to spectrometric (infrared spectroscopy [IR], mass spectrometry [MS], nuclear magnetic resonance [NMR]) or biological methods (bioassays, immunoassays), or even a combination of several of these. In view of the plethora of analogues for each class of phytosteroid found in plants and their diverse and manifold important biological activities, this area of research can be expected to continue to develop signi- cantly over the coming years.
