Recent advances in on-line multidimensional liquid chromatography

Multidimensional liquid chromatography (MD LC) has, due to enhanced peak capacity compared to one-dimensional LC, become an important analytical tool for separating components in complex samples, e.g. in proteomics. MD LC can be performed both on-line and off-line. Because of the advantages like possible automation and minimal sample loss, on-line MD LC has appeared to be very attractive also for high throughput analysis. This review includes only on-line coupled MD LC. Different aspects related to the compatibility of separation principles and column dimensions are highlighted and recent applications using on-line mainly two-dimensional (2D) LC have been included.