This new book encompasses, in great detail, the most recent progress made in the isolation and separation of natural products. It covers antibiotics, marine and plant-derived substances, enzyme inhibitors and interferons. The most recent separation methodology is described. Although there is a bias toward antibiotics, it was done because this is still the largest natural products area of research.The fourteen chapters are written by experts in their respective fields. The first two chapters are largely devoted to new methodology applied to purification of a variety of compounds. They include an extensive review and new applications of counter-current chromatography and the newly emerging HPLC-photodiode array technology. Chapter 3 provides a review of affinity chromatography applied to the separation of antibiotics for the first time. Next are chapters on antimicrobials with an update on all the most recent &bgr;-lactam (after 1976) discoveries. A comprehensive review of a very important class of antiparasitic agents - the avermectins - follows. An update of isolation and purification of a variety of marine-derived compounds is next. The succeeding chapter is a comprehensive review of the most recent developments in isolation and purification of interferons. This is followed by a discussion of enzyme inhibitors and their isolation and purification and ties in with a chapter on plant-derived natural products, some of which are also in this same category. The final chapter is a futuristic essay indicating the isolation of minute amounts of natural products and the fascinating biological properties which they possess.The book has extensive isolation schemes, tables, figures and chemical structures. In many instances a short summary of the producing organism, brief chemical description and structure and biological activity of the compounds is presented. Detailed information of extraction, separation and purification techniques follow. Each chapter has an extensive bibliography and, where applicable, an appendix showing sources of materials and equipment. A detailed index to the subject matter is included at the end of the book.The book thus offers the reader: up-to-date reviews (including 1988) of specific topics in the natural products field not to be found elsewhere; information on new chromatographic methods and techniques described in sufficient detail to be utilized by investigators in this area of research; and extensive references to enable the serious researcher to pursue particular information. It will appeal to pharmaceutical and natural products researchers and is a valuable acquisition for university chemistry and biochemistry departments.
