1. Determination of levamisole and tetramisole in seized cocaine samples by enantioselective high-performance liquid chromatography and circular dichroism detection
- Author
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Francesca Rossi, Anna Maria Di Pietra, Daniele Tedesco, Carlo Bertucci, Vincenza Andrisano, Elia Del Borrello, Edoardo Fabini, Marco Garagnani, Carlo Bertucci, Daniele Tedesco, Edoardo Fabini, Anna Maria Di Pietra, Francesca Rossi, Marco Garagnani, Elia Del Borrello, and Vincenza Andrisano
- Subjects
Circular dichroism ,enantioselective HPLC ,Tetramisole ,Biochemistry ,High-performance liquid chromatography ,Analytical Chemistry ,Cocaine ,medicine ,Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid ,Adulterant ,Chromatography ,Elution ,Chemistry ,Circular Dichroism ,Organic Chemistry ,Enantioselective synthesis ,Stereoisomerism ,General Medicine ,Levamisole ,seized cocaine samples ,Seized cocaine sample ,Racemic mixture ,Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet ,Enantiomer ,Drug Contamination ,circular dichroism detection ,medicine.drug - Abstract
Accepted Manuscript version. The Published Journal Article is available on theJournal of ChromatographyA, Volume 1363, pages 150-154 (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chroma.2014.07.069). SupplementaryMaterial available free of charge on the article webpage. © 2014. This Manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ABSTRACT Levamisole, an anthelmintic drug, has been increasingly employed as an adulterant of illicit street cocaine over the last decade; recently, the use of tetramisole, the racemic mixture of levamisole and its enantiomer dexamisole, was also occasionally observed. A new enantioselective high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method, performed on cellulose tris(3,5-dimethylphenylcarbamate) chiral stationary phases in normal-phase mode, was validated and applied to determine the enantiomeric composition of tetramisole enantiomers in seized cocaine samples. Furthermore, the hyphenation of the validated HPLC method with a circular dichroism (CD) detection system allowed the direct determination of elution order and a selective monitoring of levamisole and dexamisole in the presence of possible interferences. The method was applied to the identification and quantitation of the two enantiomers of tetramisole in seized street cocaine samples.
- Published
- 2014