Two‐dimensional strong cation exchange/positively charged reversed‐phase liquid chromatography for alkaloid analysis and purification

Peak tailing and nonalkaloid coelution usually hinder alkaloid purification. In this study, a 2DLC, strong cation exchange (SCX) coupled with positively charged RP (PGRP) LC, was developed to overcome these problems. Ten compounds including basic and nonbasic compounds were analyzed. Nonbasic compounds, which are coeluted with basic compounds on RP or PGRP columns, were weakly retained on the SCX column. In addition, a symmetrical peak shape (tailing factors <1.2) of basic compounds can be obtained in the current system. Compared to two other 2D systems, the current system provided the highest orthogonality (R² = 0.045). Furthermore, the SCX coupled with PGRP system was applied for alkaloid purification from a traditional Chinese medicine. Nineteen alkaloids were obtained and one of them was identified as a novel compound. The overall results demonstrate that the proposed system is a powerful tool for alkaloid purification.     

The influence of organic sample solvents on the separation efficiency of basic compounds under strong cation exchange mode

This study investigated the influence of organic sample solvents on separation efficiency of basic compounds under strong cation exchange (SCX) mode. The mixtures of acidic aqueous solution and organic solvent such as acetonitrile, ethanol, methanol and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) were tested as sample solvents. For later-eluting analytes, the increase of sample solvent elution strength was responsible for the decrease of separation efficiency. Thus, sample solvents with weak elution strength could provide high separation efficiencies. For earlier-eluting analytes, the retention of organic sample solvents was the main factor affecting separation efficiency. Weakly retained solvents could provide high separation efficiency. In addition, an optimized approach was proposed to reduce the effect of organic sample solvent, in which low ionic solvent was employed as initial mobile phase in the gradient. At last, the analysis of impurities in hydrophobic drug berberine was performed. The results showed that using acidic aqueous methanol as sample solvents could provide high separation efficiency and good resolution (R > 1.5).     

强阳离子交换色谱分离多肽混合物的条件优化

以酵母全蛋白提取液的胰蛋白酶切产物为研究对象,对多维色谱分离中常用的强阳离子交换色谱的分离条件,包括上样量、盐的种类、调节缓冲液pH值的酸的种类及有机溶剂的比例进行了考察和比较。结果表明,在强阳离子交换色谱分离线性上样量范围内,在氯化铵溶液作为流动相,用磷酸调节流动相缓冲液pH值至2.7,且流动相中乙腈的体积分数为30%条件下进行梯度洗脱时,可获得最佳的分离结果。本结果可为采用二维色谱-质谱策略分析多肽混合物时的第一维强阳离子交换色谱分离条件的选择提供有益的参考。     

Simultaneous separation of hydrophobic and polar bases using a silica hydride stationary phase

In this study, the retention behavior of selected hydrophobic and polar bases on a minimally modified silica hydride phase was investigated. From these results and the associated retention plots, significant differences in the chromatographic dependencies of these two classes of basic compounds were evident. The polar bases exhibited strong retention with mobile phases of high organic solvent content, but displayed weak retention with mobile phases of high water content. In contrast, the hydrophobic bases showed “U‐shape” retention dependencies, indicative of the interplay of both RP and normal‐phase retention characteristics. These studies have demonstrated that hydrophobic and polar bases can be simultaneously separated on the same column either under typical RP‐like or aqueous normal‐phase‐like conditions, respectively, with distinctive selectivity. Finally, the effects of temperature on the RP and aqueous normal phase modality of separations with these analytes were investigated, where discrete changes in retention behavior were also observed.     

Novel ultra stable silica-based stationary phases for reversed phase liquid chromatography--study of a hydrophobically assisted weak acid cation exchange phase

A mixed-mode reversed-phase/weak cation exchange (RP/WCX) phase has been developed by introducing a small amount of carboxylate functionality into a hydrophobic hyper-crosslinked (HC) platform. This silica-based HC platform was designed to form an extensive polystyrene network completely confined to the particle's surface. The fully connected polymer network prevents the loss of bonded phase, which leads to superior hydrolytic stability of the new phase when compared to conventional silica-based phases. Compared to previously introduced HC phases the added carboxylic groups impart a new weak cation exchange selectivity to the base hydrophobic HC platform. The phase thus prepared shows a mixed-mode retention mechanism, allowing for both neutral organic compounds and bases of a wide polarity range to be simultaneously separated on the same phase under the same conditions. In addition, the new phase offers the flexibility that gradients in organic modifier, pH or ionic competitors can be used to affect the separation of a wide range of solutes. Moreover, the inherent weak acid cation exchange groups allow formic and acetic acid buffers to be used as eluents thereby avoiding the mass spectrometric ionization suppression problems concomitant to the use of non-volatile additives such as strong amine modifiers (e.g. triethylamine) or salts (e.g. NaCl) to elute basic solutes from the strong cation exchange phase which was previously developed in this lab. The use of the new phase for achieving strong retention of rather hydrophilic neurotransmitters and drugs of abuse without the need for ion pairing agents is demonstrated.     

The efficient analysis of neutral and highly polar pharmaceutical compounds using reversed-phase and ion-exchange electrochromatography

Summary Highly polar compounds, such as tricyclic antidepressants are very difficult to analyse by electrochromatography with conventional reversed-phase silica-based chromatography packings. At high pH (high electroosmotic flow) the test compounds were not eluted from a Spherisorb ODS-1 column, as a result of strong interactions between the analyte and residual silanol groups on the packing material. By lowering the pH of the mobile phase, whereby the highly basic test compounds become positively charged, it was possible to elute the samples but only with severe peak tailing. Because the electroosmotic flow was greatly reduced, the elution time for neutral species became prohibitively long. By use of a strong cation exchanger in place of C₁₈-silica it was found possible to resolve a series of highly basic compounds with very high efficiencies, with very little evidence of peak tailing. Plate numbers in excess of 8 million per metre were observed.     

Determination of highly polar catecholamine with liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry using weak cation-exchange stationary phase to increase retention time

This paper reports method development and validation work to determine highly polar bases, catecholamine compounds, using weak cation-exchange liquid chromatography of low ionic strength mobile phase with electrospray tandem mass spectrometry. Catecholamine compounds, such as epinephrine and norepinephrine, well-known biomarkers to diagnose hypertension disease, spiked in saline solutions are purified with solid phase extraction (SPE) using alumina powders. The extracts are loaded into a weak cation-exchange liquid chromatographic column via an injection loop and analyzed with electrospray-mass spectrometer. The de-salted extracts contain only small amounts of electrolytes to avoid saturating weak cation-exchange sites in the stationary phase with sodium ions. Using carefully selected mobile-phase solvents with optimized compositions (acetonitrile and water 10:90 v/v) and with dilute acid additives (acetic acid 0.1% v/v), we are able to elute catecholamine at sufficient retention times to avoid co-elution of saline matrix residues while maintaining adequate electrospray ionization efficiency of these compounds. Using epinephrine and norepinephrine standards, these methods are validated at the range of 5 to 500 ng mL^− 1. The measurement accuracy and precision of using epinephrine standards are within 12% and 5.3% respectively, whereas the accuracy and precision are within 6.0% and 4.2% respectively using epinephrine standards.The detection limits of epinephrine and norepinephrine are 0.10 ng mL^− 1 and 0.45 ng mL^− 1 respectively. The recovery percentages of our solid phase extraction methods using alumina powders are higher than 74%. When the validated calibration curves are used to determine epinephrine and norepinephrine in rat blood dialysates, the determination errors of accuracy and precision are both within 4%, while the determination errors are within 3% in rat blood plasma samples.     

Preparation of a hybrid monolithic stationary phase with allylsulfonate for the rapid and simultaneous separation of cations in capillary ion chromatography

A hybrid monolithic column with sulfonate functionality was successfully prepared for the simultaneous separation of common inorganic cations in ion‐exchange chromatographic mode through a simple and easy single‐step preparation method. The strong cation‐exchange moieties were provided directly from allylsulfonate, which worked as an organic monomer in the single‐step reaction. Inorganic cations (Li⁺, Na⁺, K⁺, NH₄⁺, Cs⁺, Rb⁺, Mg²⁺, Ca²⁺, and Sr²⁺) were separated satisfactorily by using CuSO₄ as the eluent with indirect UV detection. The allysulfonate hybrid monolith showed a better performance in terms of speed and pressure drop than the capillary packed column. The number of theoretical plates achieved was 19 017 plates/m (in the case of NH₄⁺ as the analyte). The relative standard deviations (n = 6) of both retention time and peak height were less than 1.96% for all the analyte cations. The allysulfonate hybrid monolithic column was successfully applied for the rapid and simultaneous separation of inorganic cations in groundwater and the effluent of onsite domestic wastewater treatment system.     

Multidimensional separation of tryptic peptides from human serum proteins using reversed‐phase,strong cation exchange,weak anion exchange,and fused‐core fluorinated stationary phases

Proteome profiling of crude serum is a challenging task due to the wide dynamic range of protein concentrations and the presence of high‐abundance proteins, which cover >90% of the total protein mass in serum. Peptide fractionation on strong cation exchange, weak anion exchange in the electrostatic repulsion hydrophilic interaction chromatography (ERLIC) mode, RP C₁₈ at pH 2.5 (low pH), fused‐core fluorinated at pH 2.5, and RP C₁₈ at pH 9.7 (high pH) stationary phases resulted in two to three times more identified proteins and three to four times more identified peptides in comparison with 1D nanoChip‐LC–MS/MS quadrupole TOF analysis (45 proteins, 185 peptides). The largest number of peptides and proteins was identified after prefractionation in the ERLIC mode due to the more uniform distribution of peptides among the collected fractions and on the RP column at high pH due to the high efficiency of RP separations and the complementary selectivity of both techniques to low‐pH RP chromatography. A 3D separation scheme combining ERLIC, high‐pH RP, and low‐pH nanoChip‐LC–MS/MS for crude serum proteome profiling resulted in the identification of 208 proteins and 1088 peptides with the lowest reported concentration of 11 ng/mL for heat shock protein 74.     

HPLC separation of acetaminophen and its impurities using a mixed-mode reversed-phase/cation exchange stationary phase

Determination of acetaminophen and its main impurities: 4-nitrophenol, 4'-chloroacetanilide, as well as 4-aminophenol and its degradation products, p-benzoquinone and hydroquinone has been developed and validated by a new high-performance liquid chromatography method. Chromatographic separation has been obtained on a Hypersil Duet C18/SCX column, using gradient elution, with a mixture of phosphate buffer (pH = 4.88) and methanol as a mobile phase. Analysis time did not exceed 14.5 min and good resolutions, peak shapes and asymmetries have resulted. The linearity of the method has been tested in the range of 5.0-60 μg/mL for acetaminophen and 0.5-6 μg/mL for the other compounds. The limits of detection and quantification have been also established to be lower than 0.1 μg/mL and 0.5 μg/mL, respectively. The method has been successfully applied for the analysis of commercial acetaminophen preparations.     

Hydrophobic and cation exchange mechanisms in the retention of basic compounds in a polymeric column

A cation exchange retention mechanism concomitant with the well-known hydrophobic partition mechanism in a polymeric column has been observed and investigated. This exchange process is attributed to ionization of some acidic sites present in the polymer column at basic mobile phase pH values. Several drugs of different basicity have been chromatographed on a polymeric PLRP-S column with methanol-water and acetonitrile-water mobile phases. The cation exchange between the protonated basic drug and the buffer cations (Na+, K+ and BuNH4+) is observed at the pH range where the protonated drug and the ionized sites of the column coexist. This process produces a shift of the retention versus pH plot of the base to pH values lower than those expected from the pKa of the base as well as a maximum in the plot at basic pH values. These effects are more pronounced for acetonitrile-water mobile phases.     

Sulfoalkylbetaine‐based monolithic column with mixed‐mode of hydrophilic interaction and strong anion‐exchange stationary phase for capillary electrochromatography

A novel monolithic stationary phase with mixed mode of hydrophilic and strong anion exchange (SAX) interactions based on in situ copolymerization of pentaerythritol triacrylate (PETA), N,N‐dimethyl‐N‐methacryloxyethyl N‐(3‐sulfopropyl) ammonium betaine (DMMSA) and a selected quaternary amine acrylic monomer was designed as a multifunctional separation column for CEC. Although the zwitterionic functionalities of DMMSA and hydroxy groups of PETA on the surface of the monolithic stationary phase functioned as the hydrophilic interaction (HI) sites, the quaternary amine acrylic monomer was introduced to control the magnitude of the EOF and provide the SAX sites at the same time. Three different quaternary amine acrylic monomers were tested to achieve maximum EOF velocity and highest plate count. The fabrication of the zwitterionic monolith (designated as HI and SAX stationary phase) was carried out when [2‐(acryloyloxy)ethyl]trimethylammonium methylsulfate was used as the quaternary amine acrylic monomer. The separation mechanism of the monolithic column was discussed in detail. For charged analytes, a mixed mode of HI and SAX was observed by studying the influence of mobile phase pH and salt concentration on their retentions on the poly(PETA‐co‐DMMSA‐co‐[2‐(acryloyloxy)ethyl]trimethylammonium methylsulfate) monolithic column. The optimized monolith showed good separation performance for a range of polar analytes including nucleotides, nucleic acid bases and nucleosides, phenols, estrogens and small peptides. The column efficiencies greater than 192 000 theoretical plates/m for estriol and 135 000 theoretical plates/m for charged cytidine were obtained.     

强阳离子交换毛细管液相色谱-反相加压毛细管电色谱二维系统的构建及其在中药黄柏提取物分离中的应用

加压毛细管电色谱(pCEC)具有电泳和液相色谱的双重分离机理,其柱效高、选择性强、分辨率高和分离速度快并可进行梯度洗脱。我们在此基础上加入离子交换色谱模式,构建了强阳离子交换-反相加压毛细管液相色谱(micro strong cation exchange liquid chromatography/reversed phase pressurized capillary electrochromatography, μ-SCXLC/RP-pCEC)二维系统,并对中药黄柏的提取物进行了优化分离。第一维μ-SCXLC采用线性盐梯度分离,样品被切割成11个馏分洗脱收集后进入第二维,第二维脱盐后,采用RP-pCEC进行分离分析,梯度洗脱。以中药黄柏提取物为样品,此二维系统的分辨率和峰容量都较一维系统有很大提高,理论峰容量可达900左右,证明构建的二维体系非常适合复杂样品的分离分析。     

一种聚合型弱阳离子交换/亲水相互作用色谱固定相的制备及色谱性能

通过亲核取代反应将聚乙烯马来酸酐键合到氨基硅胶表面,然后将残余的马来酸酐水解,制备了一种弱阳离子交换/亲水相互作用高效液相色谱固定相(Sil-PolyCOOH),通过固体核磁、ζ-电势及元素分析对固定相进行了表征。选取核苷和核酸碱为模型化合物,通过考察流动相组成,离子强度和pH等因素对溶质保留的影响,探讨了固定相的分离性能和保留机理,结果表明,该固定相的保留机理同时涉及亲水分配相互作用和多重主客体作用力。该固定相还对糖类、敌草快与百草枯等化合物具有良好的分离性能。上述研究结果表明该固定相在极性化合物的分离上具有良好的应用前景。     

Selenium speciation analysis in a sediment using strong anion exchange and reversed phase chromatography coupled with inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry

An analytical procedure for selenium speciation of analysis of selenourea (SeU), selenoethionine (SeE), selenomethionine (SeM), Se(VI), Se(IV), dimethylselenide (dMeSe) and dimethyldiselenide (dMedSe) was developed, based on two complementary liquid chromatography (LC) techniques coupled with inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Specifically, strong anion exchange (SAX) chromatography coupled with ICP-MS was used for the separation and quantification of all the earlier mentioned Se compounds, except for the two methyl selenides, which could be separated and determined by reversed phase chromatography coupled with ICP-MS. This procedure was applied to a soil sample from the warm springs area of Thermopyles (Greece). For leaching the Se species from the soil sample, four extraction methods, using water at ambient temperature, hot water, methanol and 0.5 M HCl, were tested for their efficiency of extracting the different Se species. The speciation results obtained by the LC-ICP-MS methods were compared with those obtained by voltammetric techniques. The determination of total selenium in the sample was achieved by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry, as well as by ICP-atomic emission spectrometry, after suitable digestion of the sediment sample.     

一种内嵌三嗪环酰胺极性基团新型固定相的制备及其在碱性化合物分离中的应用

以γ-氨丙基三乙氧基硅烷为偶联剂,三聚氯氰为反应物,采用固液表面连续反应法,依次与乙二胺、十二酰氯进行亲核取代反应,制备了一种嵌入三嗪环酰胺极性基团的新型反相色谱固定相,并采用元素分析法进行了表征。用制备的固定相装填色谱柱,以商品化C18色谱柱作为参考,对比考察了碱性化合物的分离情况。结果表明,极性三嗪环酰胺基团被成功地键合到硅胶表面,连续制备3次所得固定相的C、N、H含量的最大相对偏差均小于5%,说明制备工艺重现性良好;用制备的固定相装填的色谱柱分离5种苯胺类、4种吡啶类碱性化合物的选择性好,峰形对称。该结果为进一步推进该新型固定相的商品化提供了参考数据。     

Preparation of a weak anion exchange/hydrophobic interaction dual‐function mixed‐mode chromatography stationary phase for protein separation using click chemistry

In this study, 3‐diethylamino‐1‐propyne was covalently bonded to the azide‐silica by a click reaction to obtain a novel dual‐function mixed‐mode chromatography stationary phase for protein separation with a ligand containing tertiary amine and two ethyl groups capable of electrostatic and hydrophobic interaction functionalities, which can display hydrophobic interaction chromatography character in a high‐salt‐concentration mobile phase and weak anion exchange character in a low‐salt‐concentration mobile phase employed for protein separation. As a result, it can be employed to separate proteins with weak anion exchange and hydrophobic interaction modes, respectively. The resolution and selectivity of the stationary phase were evaluated in both hydrophobic interaction and ion exchange modes with standard proteins, respectively, which can be comparable to that of conventional weak anion exchange and hydrophobic interaction chromatography columns. Therefore, the synthesized weak anion exchange/hydrophobic interaction dual‐function mixed‐mode chromatography column can be used to replace two corresponding conventional weak anion exchange and hydrophobic interaction chromatography columns to separate proteins. Based on this mixed‐mode chromatography stationary phase, a new off‐line two‐dimensional liquid chromatography technology using only a single dual‐function mixed‐mode chromatography column was developed. Nine kinds of tested proteins can be separated completely using the developed method within 2.0 h.     

An approach to speed up the isolation of hydrophilic metabolites from natural sources at semipreparative level by using a hydrophilic-lipophilic balance/mixed-mode strong cation exchange-high-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry system

An approach to speed up the isolation of hydrophilic metabolites in complex natural matrixes by using a HLB/MCX-HPLC/MS system based on the retention properties of hydrophilic-lipophilic and cation exchange polymeric cartridges was developed. This methodology was successfully applied to the re-isolation of small water soluble compounds with completely different structures from two different natural extracts such as a dipeptide (vanchrobactin) from a bacterium culture broth and a pyrrolidine bearing a carboxylic acid moiety (clionapyrrolidine A) from a sponge. This method improved not only the efficiency of the isolation methodology but also the isolation time in relation to the existing methods.     

Combination of solid phase extraction and in vial solid phase derivatization using a strong anion exchange disk for the determination of nerve agent markers

Alkylphosphonic acids (APAs) are degradation products and chemical markers of organophosphorous (OP) nerve agents (chemical warfare agents). Anion exchange disk-based solid phase extraction (SPE) has been combined with in vial solid phase derivatization (SPD) and GC–MS analysis for the determination of APAs in aqueous samples. The optimization of critical method parameters, such as the SPD reaction, was achieved using statistical experimental design and multivariate data analysis. The optimized method achieved quantitative recoveries in the range from 83% to 101% (n = 13, RSD from 4% to 10%). The method was sensitive, with LODs in SIM mode of 0.14 ppb, and demonstrated excellent linearity with an average R² ≥ 0.99 over the concentration range of 0.07–1.4 ppm in full scan mode and from 0.14 ppb to 14 ppb in SIM mode. For forensic applications, aqueous samples containing APAs at concentrations exceeding 14 ppb were concentrated and target analytes were successfully identified by spectral library and retention index matching. Method robustness was evaluated using aqueous samples from the official OPCW Proficiency Test (round 19) and all APAs present in the sample were conclusively identified. The SPE disk retained the underivatized APAs in a stable condition for extended periods of time. No significant losses of APAs from the disk were observed over a 36-day period. Overall, the method is well suited to the qualitative and quantitative analysis of degradation markers of OP nerve agents in aqueous matrices with simplicity, a low risk of cross-contamination and trace level sensitivity.     

Ultra‐high performance separation of basic compounds on reversed‐phase columns packed with fully/superficially porous silica and hybrid particles by using ultraviolet transparent hydrophobic cationic additives

The use of the tetrabutylammonium additive was investigated in the ultra‐high performance reversed‐phase liquid chromatographic elution of basic molecules of pharmaceutical interest. When added to the mobile phase at low pH, the hydrophobic tetrabutylammonium cation interacts with the octadecyl chains and with the residual silanols, thus imparting a positive charge to the stationary phase, modulating retention and improving peak shape of protonated basic solutes. Two sources of additive were tested: a mixture of tetrabutylammonium hydroxide/trifluoroacetic acid and tetrabutylammonium hydrogen sulfate. Retention and peak shape of 11 basic pharmaceutical compounds were evaluated on commercially available ultra‐fast columns packed with octadecyl stationary phases (Ascentis Express C18 2.0 µm, Acquity BEH C18 1.7 µm, Titan C18 1.9 µm). All columns benefit from the use of additive, especially tetrabutylammonium hydrogen sulfate, providing very symmetric peaks with reasonable retention times. Focusing on the probe compounds amitriptyline and sertraline, efficiency and asymmetry values were investigated at increasing retention factor. The trend is very different to that obtained in reversed‐phase conditions and the effect lies in the complex molecular interaction mechanisms based on hydrophobic and ion exchange interactions as well as electrostatic repulsion.