Today we wish to show you our Amanita muscaria extract during column chromatography process. It is a method of analizing compoud mixtures based on particles size and electrostatic adsorbtion. It allows to divide a mixture for several fractions of different chemical composition. In short, the larger are the particles, the longer is time of their retention inside the column. Every fraction may be washed out further with different solvents and analysed.
On the photo, staring from the left, you may see the way our extract (redish-brown liquid at the top of the left photo) is divided creating several zones of different colouration as the solution is flowing down the column.
We may expect that the orange zone comes from Muscaaurins, a group of yellow pigments that consists of several different compounds which makes the zone so wide. The brownish, tick zone at the top consists Muscarufin, the red pigment, the most interesting of all amanita pigments because of it's antibiotic and virostatic properties. A curious thing is the lowest green zone as mushrooms are not producing any compounds of chylorophyll group, yet there are known species of green and even blue coloration.