Separation of lipids by new thin-layer chromatography and overpressured thin-layer chromatography methods.

New methods were developed for the separation of major lipid classes varying in polarity from cholesterol esters to lysophosphatidylcholine. The methods were used for the analysis of extracts obtained from human sera. The lipids were separated by overpressured thin-layer chromatography, classical thin-layer chromatography, and one-dimensional thin layer chromatography, using six different solvent systems for development. These techniques are also suitable to separate unsaturated and saturated cholesterol esters according to the number of carbon atoms and double bond numbers of their constituent fatty acids.