HIGH-SPEED VIDEO-DENSITOMETRIC DETERMINATION OF CHLOROPHYLLS AND CAROTENES SEPARATED BY THIN-LAYER CHROMATOGRAPHY

The quantitative degradation of chlorophyll a and b into pheophytia a and b during thin-layer chromatographic (TLC) separation on silica gel plates containing 10% of ammonium sulphate suggests an indirect method for determining the original chlorophyll a and b contents in addition to the total carotenes in plant extracts. Such chromatograms, showing the three well separated spots of carotenes and pheophytin a and b above the less well resolved zones of accompanying carotenoid pigments can be evaluated by the recently developed high-speed video-densitometric technique, originally used for the large-scale quantitative TLC analysis of amino acids. The sensitivity and reproducibility of the video-densitometric pigment determinations were similar to those of spectrophotometric measurements, but the former technique has several advantages. © 1979.