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Tetracyclines (TCs) are a family of broad-spectrum antibiotics. During the manufacturing process or storage, epimerization of tetracyclines could occur, leading to 4-epimers which are nearly inactive. From an analytical point of view, isomers are often difficult to distinguish. Previously, four pairs of TCs (oxytetracycline, tetracycline, doxycycline, chlortetracycline and their respective 4-epimers) were differentiated by mass spectrometry (MS) through protonated ions. However, they do not follow common rules and so it is still quite difficult to differentiate between them. In order to solve this, the four pairs were differentiated in the current study by collision induced dissociation (CID) spectra of the alkali adduct ions, including lithium, sodium and potassium. In the spectra of the sodium adducts, all studied tetracyclines showed a tendency to form [M+Na-NH

Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI) can be comfortably diagnosed by a breath test using the mixed triglyceride 2-octanoyl (1

Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI) can be comfortably diagnosed by a breath test using the mixed triglyceride 2-octanoyl (1–13C)-1,3 distearoyl glycerol (13C-MTG). However, it is not fully accepted as a routine test yet as no vendor provides a certified product for clinical applications. Current recommended methods for quality control of triglycerides are not compatible with the produced expensive small batches of 13C-MTG. In this article, two procedures were miniaturized and optimized: one to confirm the structure by a regiospecific enzymatic reaction and another to check the purity via a methyl esterification. Both pretreated samples were then analyzed by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The proposed methods showed good selectivity for the structure confirmation and good linearity with external standards for the purity control: R2 values were higher than 0.995, accuracy was in the 98–100% range and excellent repeatability (RSD

A multiple headspace extraction experiment coupled to gas chromatography (MHE-GC) is used for the classification and qualification of different mesoporous silica (MPSi) materials used for drug delivery. In this MHE experiment, a pure liquid solvent probe is fully evaporated in a sealed headspace vial in the presence of the MPSi sample, leading to a gas-solid partitioning that is theoretically described. The obtained results matched with the known characteristics of the studied samples, such as adsorption capacity due to differences in porosity and passivation treatments. Moreover, it proves the effectiveness of a poly dimethyl siloxane (PDMS) coating treatment over a thermal one in reducing the specific interactions of the MPSi. In addition, it evidences the important role of confinement effects when the pore diameter is close to the microporosity range. Finally, a simple experiment for fast screening is proposed by comparison of the results obtained for four different probes used as a mixture.

An analytical procedure to measure the whole-body uptake of pharmaceuticals in zebrafish has been developed using state-of-the-art methodologies. A sample preparation procedure for 9 pharmaceuticals displaying a variety in physicochemical properties was developed using 10-day old zebrafish (TG898). For an efficient homogenization of the samples and subsequent recovery of the compounds of interest, different amounts of organic solvents in combination with acidic modifiers were added to zebrafish samples. Samples were subsequently processed using a powerful bath sonicator and centrifuged. Supernatant was then removed and evaporated in a vacuum oven before being reconstituted in a mobile phase-like solvent. Samples were analyzed using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) on an Acquity BEH C18 column (100 × 2.1mm, dp=1.7µm) coupled to a Waters Xevo TQ-S mass spectrometer. For this purpose, a generic gradient was run, wherein the percentage of acetonitrile was varied from 3% to 82% in 10.5min at a flow rate of 0.41mL/min. Linearity of the method was demonstrated for all compounds (R2 > 0.997) in a practically relevant concentration range. Matrix effects were between 81% and 106%, except for amitriptyline (51%). Using this method, it was demonstrated that a sample pretreatment using 1:2 (v/v) water:methanol in combination with 0.1% formic acid resulted in acceptable recoveries between 74% and 100% for all compounds. Together with the obtained lower limits of quantification of the analytical method (between 0.005 and 1.5ng/mL), this allowed the use of a single zebrafish to study the whole-body uptake of a particular drug, after incubating zebrafish at the maximum tolerated concentration for this drug.

A method to trap magnetic nanoparticles inside the electrophoretic capillary has been developed without disabling and disturbing the coolant liquid recirculation. The complete optimization from setting up of the external magnetic field to injecting the magnetic nanoparticles in order to facilitate efficient trapping is described. In addition to this, the setup has been tested with 150mM sodium phosphate buffer as the background electrolyte at different pH values (2, 4, 6 and 8). All these pH values have been investigated at 25°C and 37°C to mimic room temperature and physiological temperature, respectively. The capture of magnetic nanoparticles was examined via UV detection and also microscopically. To demonstrate the efficiency of the trapping, an in-line capillary electrophoresis enzymatic assay using hFMO3 was performed successfully. This method can be of further use for in-line capillary electrophoresis using magnetic nanoparticles as a solid support for enzyme/protein immobilization.

After the great commercial success of sub-3 µm superficially porous particles, vendors are now also starting to commercialize 5 µm superficially porous particles, as an alternative to their fully porous counterparts which are routinely used in pharmaceutical analysis. In this study, the performance of 5 µm superficially porous particles was compared to that of fully porous 5 µm particles in terms of efficiency, separation performance and loadability on a conventional HPLC instrument. Van Deemter and kinetic plots were first used to evaluate the efficiency and performance of both particle types using alkylphenones as a test mixture. The van Deemter and kinetic plots showed that the superficially porous particles provide a superior kinetic performance compared to the fully porous particles over the entire relevant range of separation conditions, when both support types were evaluated at the same operating pressure. The same observations were made both for isocratic and gradient analysis. The superior performance was further demonstrated for the separation of a pharmaceutical compound (griseofulvin) and its impurities, where a gain in analysis time of around 2 could be obtained using the superficially porous particles. Finally, both particle types were evaluated in terms of loadability by plotting the resolution of the active pharmaceutical ingredient and its closest impurity as a function of the signal-to-noise ratio obtained for the smallest impurity. It was demonstrated that the superficially porous particles show better separation performance for griseofulvin and its impurities without significantly compromising sensitivity due to loadability issues in comparison with their fully porous counterparts. Moreover these columns can be used on conventional equipment without modifications to obtain a significant improvement in analysis time.

Emtricitabine (FTC) is an antiretroviral compound that inhibits the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase. For the quantification of FTC related substances, a liquid chromatography (LC) method coupled with ultraviolet (UV) detection was developed earlier in our laboratory. Several unknown compounds were detected during the analysis of a commercial sample. However, most of these impurities were not characterized. In this study, impurity profiling in a selected FTC sample was done using LC-mass spectrometry (MS). Due to the presence of a non-volatile buffer, a desalting procedure was carried out before sending the impurity into the MS. Totally, nine peaks were studied and most of them could be characterized.

The rise of monolithic stationary phases offers to routine and research laboratories several advantages. In spite of their recent discovery, they have rapidly become highly popular separation media for liquid chromatography. Time reduction and economic reasons like e.g. a diminished use of mobile phase are the most important ones. At the same time, it was reported that these columns offer a faster and better separation. The aim of this article was to investigate the transferability of methods originally developed on conventional particle-packed C(18) columns (XTerra RP18 and Zorbax RX), onto the more recent monolithic columns. Both types, conventional particle-packed and monolithic columns, were able to separate tetracycline, oxytetracycline and chlortetracycline from their respective impurities with sufficient resolution, but showed remarkably shorter analysis times and lower backpressures, improving the lifetime of the column.

In order to study column deterioration as a result of long-term storage and/or usage in liquid chromatography analyses, 55 pairs (same batch) of different commercial reversed-phase C 18 columns were examined using an already existing column characterisation system. After initial testing, one column was stored and the other was used to analyse different pharmaceuticals. All columns were characterized by four chromatographic parameters reflecting hydrophobicity, silanol activity, metal impurity and steric selectivity at the beginning and at the end of the test. An F -value was calculated to express the change of column properties with one single number. After performing analyses, higher F -values were obtained as compared to the non-used, stored columns. Although the time during which the columns were used to perform analyses was relatively short, an obvious influence was noticed, mainly resulting from small changes in silanol activity and hydrophobicity. Most of the affected columns have no endcapping and/or no base deactivation, making them more vulnerable for degradation, resulting in higher silanol activity and faster ageing. This effect is observed less with columns equipped with polar-embedded groups and/or polar endcapping, protecting the column by blocking the silanol groups and attracting a shielding water layer. Also columns with higher coverages and bulky or long chains show more resistance towards degradation.

The official method for the determination of dirithromycin and related substances in the European Pharmacopoeia (Ph. Eur.) and in the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) is an isocratic liquid chromatographic (LC) method using an ODS column. With this method, the separation of the main component dirithromycin from its epimer is not complete. Moreover, this method suffers sometimes from drift of the baseline and from subsequent quantitation problems. The required resolution is not easy to obtain. Using an adapted method derived from the one prescribed in the pharmacopoeias, the selectivity of a set of more than 40 reversed-phase columns towards dirithromycin components was investigated. The selection of the most suitable column was achieved by the chromatographic response function (CRF) approach. Several changes were introduced to the method in order to improve the separation and to overcome the baseline drift problem. The resulting method uses a Zorbax Extend column maintained at 30 degrees C and a mobile phase containing acetonitrile, methanol, 2-propanol, water and a phosphate buffer at pH 7.5. The method allows a good separation of dirithromycin components, which is much better than that obtained with the existing methods. Several impurities of unknown identity are also separated. The method shows good repeatability, linearity and sensitivity, and it is robust. In addition, it proved to be applicable to a wide number of C18 reversed-phase columns.

Analysis of nitrite, the indicator of nitric oxide (NO) generation in vivo, provides a useful tool to study NO synthesis in vivo. A fast and sensitive fluorometric CE method was developed for determination of nitrite in human plasma through its derivatization with 2,3-diaminonaphthalene (DAN). Nitrite in human plasma was easily reacted with DAN under acid conditions to yield the highly fluorescent 2,3-naphthotriazole (NAT). Fluorescence detection was optimized to achieve subnanomolar detection which allows a direct analysis of plasma samples unlike most CE–UV methods using sample stacking. Acetonitrile was used to remove the protein. Short-end injection and a high voltage (−30 kV) were used to shorten the analysis time. The good separation was achieved with 20 mM borate buffer at pH 9.23. The separation of NAT was obtained within 1.4 min. The deproteinized plasma sample was injected hydrodynamically for 5 s at −50 mbar into a 60 cm×75 μm internal diameter uncoated fused-silica capillary. Excitation wavelength was selected with a broad-band filter (240–400 nm), and the emitted light was measured at 418 nm by the use of a cutoff filter. A good linearity (R2=0.9975) was obtained in the range from 2 to 500 nM. The detection limit of nitrite was 0.6 nM in original plasma samples, which is 750 times lower than our previous CE–UV method. The developed fluorometric CE method offers the advantages of more simple system and lower cost compared with the current fluorometric HPLC methods without losing sensitivity. The detected mean nitrite concentration in human plasma by this method was consistent with the most frequently reported values.

A method to study Abl1 tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) by liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS) was developed and validated. Chromatographic separation was achieved on a Symmetry(®) C-18 column using a gradient. The detection was performed by selected ion monitoring (SIM) mode via positive ESI interface. The limit of quantification (LOQ) was 40.8 nM for p-Abltide [product, KKGEAIpYAAPFA-NH2] and 26.7 nM for Abltide (substrate, KKGEAIYAAPFA-NH2). The residual plot of linearity calibration curve indicated a good fit with a linear model. Intra- and inter-day precision was less than 10% and accuracy was from -6.93% to +0.15%. Matrix effect was not significant in this method. The validated method was applied to an Abl1 TKIs study. Imatinib mesylate (IM) and dasatinib were used to evaluate this method and the IC50 values were 202.1 nM and 925.1 pM, respectively. Two natural products (-)- epigallocatechingallate (EGCG) and caffeic acid were tested with this model. The IC50 value of EGCG was found at 64.03 nM and caffeic acid showed fluctuant inhibitory activity from 26% to 55% in the concentration range from 1 nM to 1mM. The IC50 value of a dimethylpyrrole hydroxylbenzoic acid derivative (MPB) was 1.915 μM.

Investigation of unknown impurities in a tylosin sample was performed using liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (LC/MS). Separation was performed according to the recently described LC-UV method of Ashenafi et al. (2011) [14]. This method was reported to have a good selectivity as it was able to separate the four main components of tylosin from the already known and 23 unknown impurities. However, as this method uses a mobile phase with non-volatile constituents, direct characterization of these impurities using LC/MS was not possible. The impurity fractions were therefore first collected and then desalted before sending them to the MS. Identification of the impurities in the tylosin sample was performed with a quadruple ion trap (IT) MS, with an electrospray ionization (ESI) source in the positive ion mode. The structure of the impurities was deduced by comparing their fragmentation pattern with those of the main components of tylosin. As several peaks in the LC-UV method contained multiple compounds, using this method in total 41 new impurities were (partly) characterized.

The characterization of unknown (UNK) impurities in capreomycin (CMN) using liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (LC/MS) has been described. The ion-pair liquid chromatography method coupled to ultraviolet detection (LC-UV) described by Mallampati et al. was used for the separation of CMN from its related substances. As the method uses non-volatile reagents it could not be directly coupled to mass spectrometry (MS) for impurity characterization. So, these UNK impurities were collected and desalted before sending to MS for structural characterization. As no information about the fragmentation of the main components of CMN, except for CMN IB, was available in the literature, they were studied first. Next, the structures of the impurities were deduced by comparing their fragmentation to that of the main components of CMN. Fourteen UNK impurities that were never described before, were (partly) characterized.

The European Pharmacopoeia (Ph. Eur.) describes liquid chromatography-ultraviolet (LC-UV) methods using C(18) stationary phases for the analysis of polymyxin B and colistin. Several unknown impurities were detected in commercial samples of those polypeptide complexes. However, the Ph. Eur. does not specify any related substances for polymyxin B and colistin. Since both methods use non-volatile buffers, the mobile phases were incompatible with mass spectrometry (MS). For the identification of related substances in bulk samples by LC/MS, volatile mobile phase systems were developed. However, the LC/MS methods (with volatile additives) showed inferior chromatographic separation compared to the LC-UV method (with non-volatile additives). Moreover, previously identified impurities by LC/MS could not be assigned in LC-UV methods as the separation in both systems was different. In this study, known impurities were traced in the LC-UV methods and new impurities present in polymyxin B and colistin bulk samples were characterized. To achieve this, each peak from the non-volatile system was collected separately and reinjected into an LC system with a volatile mobile phase coupled to MS. This way, collected impurity peaks were rechromatographed on a reversed phase column in order to separate the analyte from the buffer salts. Using this method, out of 39 peaks, five novel related substances were characterized in a polymyxin B bulk sample. Fourteen impurities, which were already reported in the literature were traced as good as possible in the LC-UV method. In the case of colistin, a total of 36 peaks were investigated, among which four new compounds. Additionally, 30 known impurities were traced in the LC-UV method.

A method was developed to determine traces of trifluoroacetic acid as impurity in synthetic or semi-synthetic drugs as antibiotics, macropeptides, etc. Capillary electrophoresis in combination with capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection (CE-C(4)D) was used due to lack of UV absorbance property of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA). The optimized method took less than 1 min with good linearity (R(2)=0.9995) for trifluoroacetic acid concentration from 2 to 100 ppm. It also has a good repeatability expressed by the relative standard deviation (% RSD) which is 1.2 and 2.1% for intraday and interday precision, respectively, at 50 ppm TFA, and good sensitivity with 0.34 ppm, 1.2 ppm LOD and LOQ, respectively. In addition, the content of TFA in synthetic drug, was determined using the validated method which gave good linearity (R(2)=0.9996) for trifluoroacetic acid spiked into drug in a concentration range of 2-80 ppm, with good intraday repeatability of 2.0%. The analysis is performed in a background electrolyte composed of 20mM morpholinoethane-sulfonic acid (Mes) and 20mM L-histidine (L-His) pH 6.1. Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) was added as flow modifier in a concentration (0.2mM) lower than the critical micellar concentration. Ammonium formate 6 ppm was used as internal standard. The applied voltage was 30 kV in reverse polarity. A fused silica capillary with 75 μm internal diameter and total length 47 cm (31 cm to C(4)D detector and 37 cm to DAD detector) was used.

The selection of a reversed-phase liquid chromatographic (RP-LC) column with suitable selectivity for a particular separation is difficult if the brand name of the column is not known. The monographs of the European Pharmacopoeia and other official compendia for drug analysis only give a general description of the stationary phase to be used in the operating procedure of a liquid chromatographic method. A project to develop a chromatographic test procedure to characterise RP-LC C(18) columns was started earlier and resulted in a fast, simple, repeatable and reproducible test procedure. Four column parameters, determined on 69 RP-LC C(18) columns, allowed the characterisation and ranking of these columns. In this paper, an overview of this column classification system is given with an application on the separation of vancomycin and some of its impurities. It is shown that the column ranking system is a helpful tool in the selection of a suitable column.