A new approach to paper chromatographic blots classification-separation based on the Levenberg-Marquardt method for Gaussian fitting

Planar chromatography is an efficient, inexpensive method for separating complex samples into their different components. Here, a method for isolation of the superimposed chromatographic blots is presented. This technique based on the Levenberg-Marquardt method is applied to separate and evaluate the blots, modelling them as bidimensional Gaussian functions. The methodology followed has been applied to chromatographic paper in neonatal screening programmes on test samples as well as to chromatographic lanes of blood samples in which the amino acids phenylalanine and valine are superimposed. The values obtained were contrasted with those given by more accurate analytic techniques