| Abstract: | Enantiomer separations by HPLC using the macrocyclic glycopeptides teicoplanin (Chirobiotic T), teicoplanin aglycon (Chirobiotic TAG), and ristocetin A (Chirobiotic R) chiral stationary phases (CSP) have been achieved on a unique series of potentially biologically active racemic analogues of dihydrofurocoumarin. The macrocyclic glycopeptides have proven to be very selective for this class of compound. All of the 28 chiral analogues examined afforded baseline separation on at least one of the macrocyclic glycopeptide CSP. The teicoplanin CSP showed the broadest enantioselectivity with 24 of the compounds baseline separated. The TAG and the R CSP produced 23 and 14 baseline separations respectively. All three mobile phase modes, i.e. normal phase (NP), reversed phase (RP), and new polar organic modes (PO), have been evaluated. The NP mode proved to be most effective for the separation of chiral dihydrofurocoumarins on all CSP tested. In the reversed phase (RP) mode, all three CSP separated a similar number of compounds. It was observed that the structural characteristics of the analytes and steric effects are very important factors leading to chiral recognition. Hydrogen bonding was found to play a secondary role in chiral discrimination in the normal phase and polar organic modes. Hydrophobic interactions are important for chiral separation in the reversed-phase mode. Chromatographic retention data does not provide information on the absolute configuration of these chiral dihydrofurocoumarin derivatives. However, when coupled with circular dichroism using the exciton coupling chirality method, the enantiomer elution order and the absolute configuration of some chiral dihydrofurocoumarins were successfully determined. |
