A very rapid and efficient separation technique for cellular rhizobial cyclosophoraoses was developed based on fractional precipitation and partition chromatography. Cyclosophoraoses are known to function in the osmotic regulation and root nodule formation of legumes during the nitrogen fixation process. Cyclosophoraoses are produced as unbranched cyclic (1longrightarrow12)-${\beta}$-D-glucans in Agrobacterium or Rhizobium species. Recent research has shown that cyclosophoraoses can form inclusion complexation with various unstable or insoluble guest chemicals, thereby implying great potential for industrial application. Typical separation of pure cellular cyclosophoraoses has been so far carried out by several time-consuming steps, including size exclusion, anion exchange, and desalting liquid chromatographies, with a relatively poor recovery. However, the proposed method demonstrated that the successive application of fractional ethanol precipitation and one step of silica gel-based flash column chromatography was enough to simultaneously purify neutral or anionic forms of cyclosophoraoses. This novel technique is very rapid and provides a high recovery.

Keywords: Cyclosophoraoses, cyclic(1?2)-b-D-glucans, Rhizobiummeliloti, silicagelflashcolumnchromatography, inclusioncomplexation