ABSTRACT
Although the isolation of metabolites from biological material is usually difficult, there are a large number of techniques which can be applied. These make use of the different physico-chemical properties of the metabolites and their ionic, polar and non-polar interactions with solvents and solid supports. As there are so many endogenous compounds in biological media, each metabolite is bound to be contaminated with components that behave similarly in any particular system. Only by using a combination of extraction and chromatographic techniques will it be possible to design an efficient procedure for the isolation and identification of the metabolites produced by a complex catabolic process.
