ABSTRACT
The reported isolation methodology for this class of antibiotics spans the extreme of classic methods involving ion exchange, carbon adsorption, and selective precipitation and the use of modern affinity and high-performance liquid chromatography techniques. This chapter focuses on chromatographic methodology, both classic and modern, used to isolate and purify members of this class. The first two glycopeptides to be discovered, ristocetin and vancomycin, are the two most extensively studied members of this class. In general, all glycopeptide antibiotics have Gram-positive bacteriocidal activity against strains of Staphyloccocus and Streptococcus. The glycopeptides are all too polar to extract into organic solvents, and they differ too widely in charge characteristics, from the negatively charged ardacins to the positively charged ristocetin. The binding of these low-molecular-weight glycopeptides to cell wall precursors is analogous to the same phenomenon observed for protein-ligand interactions and suggests it can also be exploited using the technique of affinity chromatography.
