Sensitivity enhancement of capillary electrophoresis-frontal analysis-based method for characterization of drug-protein interactions using on-line sample preconcentration

Capillary electrophoresis-frontal analysis is one of the most frequently used approaches for the study of plasma protein-drug interactions as a substantial part of new drug development. However, the capillary electrophoresis-frontal analysis typically combined with ultraviolet-visible detection suffers from insufficient concentration sensitivity, particularly for substances with limited solubility and low molar absorption coefficient. The sensitivity problem has been solved in this work by its combination with an on-line sample preconcentration. According to the knowledge of the authors this combination has never been used to characterize plasma protein-drug binding. It resulted in a fully automated and versatile methodology for the characterization of binding interactions. Further, the validated method minimalizes the experimental errors due to a reduction in the manipulation of samples. Moreover, employing an on-line preconcentration strategy with capillary electrophoresis-frontal analysis using human serum albumin-salicylic acid as a model system improves the drug concentration sensitivity 17-fold compared to the conventional method. The value of binding constant (1.51 ± 0.63) · 10⁴ L/mol obtained by this new capillary electrophoresis-frontal analysis modification is in agreement with the value (1.13 ± 0.28) ·10⁴ L/mol estimated by a conventional variant of capillary electrophoresis-frontal analysis without the preconcentration step, as well as with literature data obtained using different techniques.     

电致化学发光法高灵敏度测定血清中的辛可宁

利用金电极为工作电极,研究了辛可宁-Ru(bpy)2+3体系的电致化学发光行为。研究表明,辛可宁对Ru(bpy)2+3在电极表面的电致化学发光具有显著的增强作用,据此建立了一种高灵敏度测定辛可宁的电致化学发光分析方法。考察了硼酸-硼砂缓冲溶液的浓度、p H值、联吡啶钌浓度、光电倍增管电压等参数对实验的影响。在12 mmol/L硼酸-硼砂缓冲溶液(p H 9.0)中,辛可宁浓度的对数lgc在3.0×10-9~6.0×10-6mol/L范围内与Ru(bpy)2+3的电致化学发光强度变化值(ΔI)呈线性关系,检出限(S/N=3)为1.76×10-10mol/L。应用此法对血清中辛可宁的浓度进行测试,加标回收率为102.1%~109.5%。     

冠心病患者血脂分析与HCY测定的临床应用

目的通过研究并分析出冠心病患者的血脂组成成分,然后通过使用HCY测定的方法测定冠心病患者血清中的同型半胱氨酸含量的实际临床应用。方法 50例患有冠心病的患者和50名健康人员的血清成分中同型半胱氨酸含量,其中治疗组有25例无心肌梗塞的冠心病患者,其余25例研究对象均为有心肌梗塞患者,然后对治疗组患者的血脂组成成分进行测定并分析比较出异常成分。结果通过研究后发现治疗组的研究对象血清中的同型半胱氨酸含量远多于对照组的50例健康人员血清中的同型半胱氨酸含量,其中25例治疗组心肌梗塞患者的同型半胱氨酸含量多于25例治疗组的无心肌梗塞患者的同型半胱氨酸含量,具有统计学意义。冠心病患者的血脂组成成分Apo B100的值增加,冠心病患者的Apo A1的值和Apo A1与Apo B100的比值均减小,经统计学分析得出,具有统计学意义。结论血清同型半胱氨酸的含量改变,以及血脂中Apo B100的值和Apo A1的值与Apo B100的比值发生改变对治疗诊断与预防冠心病都有十分重要的价值。     

Bulk derivatization and cation exchange restricted access media-based trap-and-elute liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry method for determination of trace estrogens in serum

Estrone (E1), estradiols (α/β-E2), and estriol (E3) are four major metabolically active estrogens exerting strong biological activities at very low circulating concentrations. This paper reports a sensitive and efficient method with automated, on-line clean-up and detection to determine trace estrogens in a small volume of serum samples using liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization–tandem mass spectrometry directly, without off-line liquid–liquid or solid-phase extraction pretreatments. Serum aliquots (charcoal stripped fetal bovine serum, 100 μL) were spiked with four estrogen standards and their corresponding isotope-labeled internal standards, then bulk derivatized with 2-fluoro-1-methyl-pyridium p-toluenesulfonate (2-FMP) to establish the calibration curves and perform method validation. Calibration was established in the concentration ranges of 5–1000 pg mL⁻¹, and demonstrated good linearity of R² from 0.9944 to 0.9997 for the four derivatized estrogens. The lower detection limits obtained were 3–7 pg mL⁻¹. Good accuracy and precision in the range of 86–112% and 2.3–11.9%, respectively, were observed for the quality control (QC) samples at low, medium, and high concentration levels. The stability tests showed that the derivatized serum samples were stable 8 h after derivatization at room temperature and at least to 48 h if stored at −20 °C. The method was applied to measure trace estrogens in real human and bovine serum samples, and three of four estrogen compounds studied were observed and quantified.     

Analysis of peptides and protein digests by reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography–electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry using neutral pH elution conditions

In this study, the advantages of carrying out the analysis of peptides and tryptic digests of proteins under gradient elution conditions at pH 6.5 by reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) and in-line electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) are documented. For these RP separations, a double endcapped, bidentate anchored n-octadecyl wide pore silica adsorbent was employed in a capillary column format. Compared to the corresponding analysis of the same peptides and protein tryptic digests using low pH elution conditions for their RP-HPLC separation, this alternative approach provides improved selectivity and more efficient separation of these analytes, thus allowing a more sensitive identification of proteins at different abundance levels, i.e. more tryptic peptides from the same protein could be confidently identified, enabling higher sequence coverage of the protein to be obtained. This approach was further evaluated with very complex tryptic digests derived from a human plasma protein sample using an online two-dimensional (2D) strong cation-exchange (SCX)-RP-HPLC-ESI-MS/MS system. Again, at pH 6.5, with mobile phases of different compositions, improved chromatographic selectivities were obtained, concomitant with more sensitive on-line electrospray ionisation tandem mass spectrometric (ESI-MS/MS) analysis. As a consequence, more plasma proteins could be confidently identified, highlighting the potential of these RP-HPLC methods with elution at pH 6.5 to extend further the scope of proteomic investigations.     

Coumarine–imino–C2-glucosyl conjugate as receptor for Cu in blood serum milieu,on silica gel sheet and in Hep G2 cells and the characterization of the species of recognition

A coumarine–imino–C2-glucosyl conjugate (L) was synthesized and characterized. The conjugate L is found to recognize Cu²⁺ in aqueous HEPES buffer by exhibiting a 95% fluorescence quenching in pH range 7–10 even in the presence of several biologically and ecologically relevant metal ions. Fluorescence on–off behavior has been clearly demonstrated on the basis of the binding variability of Cu²⁺ to L. The binding has been elicited through the changes observed in fluorescence, absorption, ESI-MS and ¹H NMR titrations. All the other thirteen metal ions studied did not show any change in the fluorescence emission. These ions do not interfere with the recognition of Cu²⁺ by L. The structural features of [CuL]₂ complex in both the isomeric forms were established by DFT computational calculations. The utility of L has been demonstrated by showing its sensitivity toward Cu²⁺ on a thin layer of silica gel. The L gives sensitive fluorescence signals for Cu²⁺ even in blood serum and exhibits appropriate fluorescence responses in living cells.     

Understanding the thermal stability of human serum proteins with the related near-infrared spectral variables selected by Monte Carlo-uninformative variable elimination

Understanding the thermal stability of the proteins in human serum is essential since human serum is the important source of pharmaceutical proteins. Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy was applied to the investigation of thermal changes in secondary structure and hydration of human serum proteins. However, as a multicomponent system, the overlap of the broad NIR bands makes the structural analysis very difficult directly using the spectra of serum samples. Therefore, continuous wavelet transform (CWT) was used to improve the resolution of NIR spectra, and Monte Carlo-uninformative variable elimination (MC-UVE) method was applied to the selection of the variables associated with the proteins for the structural analysis. The variables (5956, 5867, 5815, 5747, 4525, 4401, 4359 and 4328 cm^-1) related to protein secondary structures and those (7074, 6951, 6827 and 6700 cm^-1) connected with water species were selected. Then, the thermal stability was analyzed through the intensity variations of the selected variables with temperature from 30 ℃ to 80 ℃. It was found that the variation of the spectral variables related to both α-helix and β-sheetchanges apparently around 60 ℃, indicating the beginning of the thermal denaturation and the transition from α-helix to β-sheet. Moreover, an obvious change was found around 60 ℃ for the content of the water specie S₃, i.e., the water cluster containing three hydrogen bonds. The result demonstrates that MC-UVE can identify the protein-related NIR spectral variables, and the water species may be a marker for investigation of the structural change of proteins in biochemical systems.     

新型聚合物多孔涂层毛细管开管柱的制备及电色谱研究

以甲基丙烯酸缩水甘油酯(GMA)和乙二醇二甲基丙烯酸酯(EDMA)为前驱体制备了新型聚合物多孔涂层毛细管开管(PLOT)柱固定相。通过优化聚合反应时间、致孔剂比例及交联剂比例获得了色谱性能良好的PLOT柱,扫描电镜结果显示毛细管柱内的多孔涂层厚度适中且均匀。在毛细管电色谱模式下,PLOT柱以反相色谱分离机理有效分离了中性、酸性和碱性小分子。人血清白蛋白(HSA)共价结合的蛋白亲和PLOT柱对5对手性对映体实现了较好的分离,且其分离度远高于HSA修饰的单层聚合物毛细管开管柱。PLOT柱分离烷基苯的日内、日间和柱间的相对标准偏差分别小于1.7%、4.8%和7.8%。