Capillary electrokinetic separations: Influence of mobile phase composition on performance

The composition of the mobile phase employed in capillary zone electrophoresis and the related technique, micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography, is an important factor in determining separation performance. The influences of ionic salt, surfactant, and organic solvent mobile phase additives on separation efficiency, retention, and elution range are discussed and demonstrated.     

毛细管电泳中的毛细管区段灌注及其相关技术

毛细管区段灌注是一种随手性毛细管电泳、亲和毛细管电泳和胶束电动力色谱-质谱发展而产生的实验技术。由于它能消除采用以上方法时遇到的缓冲溶液对检测的影响。因此引起人们的关注。本文对区段灌注技术的原理,区段灌注技术在手性毛细管电泳、亲和毛细管电泳和胶束电动力色谱中的应用,以及目前区段灌注技术存在的一些问题进行了评述。本文还对由区段灌注技术发展而来的逆流毛细管电泳、液相预柱毛细管电泳、多步配体进样等实验技术进行了简介。     

Probing affinity via capillary electrophoresis: advances in 2003–2004

This review addresses recent advances in capillary electrophoresis of biological-based molecular interaction from a broader perspective, based on applications reported during the period 2003–2004. These capillary electrophoresis-based studies of molecular interactions include affinity capillary electrophoresis, electrokinetic chromatography, and free zone electrophoresis. The review is written as a general synopsis of applications and does not cover the theory or protocol involved in the implementation of the analyses.The caption to Fig. 3 was incorrect. This revised version replaces the article published online on 10 February 2005.     

Assessment of aptamer-steroid binding using stacking-enhanced capillary electrophoresis

The binding affinity of 17β-estradiol with an immobilized DNA aptamer was measured using capillary electrophoresis. Estradiol captured by the immobilized DNA was injected into the separation capillary using pH-mediated sample stacking. Stacked 17β-estradiol was then separated using micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography and detected with UV-visible absorbance. Standard addition was used to quantify the concentration of estradiol bound to the aptamer. Following incubation with immobilized DNA, analysis of free and bound estradiol yielded a dissociation constant of 70 ± 10 μM. The method was also used to screen binding affinity of the aptamer for estrone and testosterone. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of capillary electrophoresis to assess the binding affinity of DNA aptamers.     

Free solution capillary electrophoresis and micellar electrokinetic resolution of amino acid enantiomers and peptide isomers with L- and D-Marfey's reagents

Separation of amino acid enantiomers and peptide isomers has been made possible through the use of Marfey's reagent and high-performance capillary electrophoresis (HPCE). Samples of amino acids and peptides were first derivatized with Marfey's reagent and subsequently analyzed by HPCE. Different modes of separation were investigated including free solution and micellar electrokinetic chromatography. The use of micellar electrokinetic chromatography in combination with L- and D-Marfey's reagent offered unequivocal means to confirm the presence of D-amino acid in an unknown sample. This method is also particularly useful for the analysis of peptide isomers.     

Possibilities and limitations of different modes of capillary electrophoresis for the quantitative determination of catechols and caffeine in black and green tea

Methods of capillary electrophoresis (capillary zone electrophoresis, micellar electrokinetic chromatography, and microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography) were compared in determining polyphenolic antioxidants and alkaloids in black and green tea. It was shown that reverse-flow micellar electrokinetic chromatography (RF-MEKC, pH < 2.5) using reversed pola rity is most preferable for the rapid simultaneous determination of catechols and caffeine. The detection limit was 1 mg/L.     

New High-Performance Techniques for Ion-Exchange Separation

Results of the use of water-soluble cationic polymers for the synthesis of new anion exchangers for ion chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, and electrokinetic chromatography were summarized. The influence of functional groups in polymer molecules on the selectivity of the ion-chromatographic determination of ions and their mobility in capillary electrophoresis was considered.     

Recent advances in capillary electrophoresis/electrospray-mass spectrometry

In this review, the progress in hyphenation of capillary electrophoresis (CE) with electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) since the article of Banks (Banks, J. F., Electrophoresis 1997, 18, 2255-2266) is reported. In all capillary-based electromigration techniques, such as capillary gel electrophoresis (CGE), capillary isotachophoresis (CITP), capillary isoelectric focussing (CIEF), micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC), affinity capillary electrophoresis (ACE), as well as in the hybrid techniques capillary electrochromatography (CEC), and pressurized capillary electrochromatography (pCEC) progress has been made in experimental setups, and for many groups of analytes, such as peptides, proteins, nucleotides, saccharides, drugs and their metabolites, CE/ESI-MS has been successfully applied. Electromigration is further miniaturized. New preconcentration methods allow the investigation of compounds, which are not sensitively detected with ESI-MS. Coordination ion spray (CIS) MS is another method for sensitivity enhancement by on-line formation of charged coordination compounds.     

Sweeping of neutral analytes via complexation with borate in capillary zone electrophoresis

Summary The sweeping concept is extended to capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) separation of neutral solutes involving complexation with borate. Analogous to the pseudostationary phase in electrokinetic chromatography (EKC), the complexing agent (borate) serves as carrier for sweeping and separation in CZE. Therefore, similar to the retention factor in EKC, the focusing effect in the present system is directly related to the association constant between the analyte and complexing agent. Theoretical and some preliminary experimental studies gerenally suggest that the electrophoretic mobility of the complex and the concentration of the complexing agent affect the resulting length of narrowed zones. Moreover, sweeping using borate is affected by pH since borate complexation is pH dependent. From around 10 to 40-fold improvement in peak heights has been observed experimentally for some neutral test analytes (monosaccharides, catechols, and nucleosides)     

Recent advances in peptide chiral selectors for electrophoresis and liquid chromatography

The application of peptides in chiral separations using techniques such as capillary electrophoresis (CE), electrokinetic capillary chromatography (EKC) and liquid chromatography is the focus of this review. Methods for finding peptide selectors using combinatorial library approaches are discussed, as well as recent advances in the use of peptides as general chiral selectors for electrophoresis and liquid chromatography. One example shows the effectiveness of polymeric dipeptide surfactants as general chiral selectors for electrophoresis. Another example shows the versatility of oligoproline chiral stationary phases, exhibiting resolution for a number of racemic analytes comparable to other well-established chiral stationary phases.     

Migration behavior of weakly retained, charged analytes in voltage-assisted micro-high performance liquid chromatography

The application of voltage in micro-high performance liquid chromatography (micro-HPLC) creates a system where separation is governed by a hybrid differential migration process, which entails the features of both HPLC and capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE), i.e., chromatographic retention and electrophoretic migration. In this paper, we use our previously published approach to decouple these two mechanisms via analysis of the input data for estimation of electrokinetic parameters, such as conductivity, equivalent lengths, mobilities and velocities. Separation of weakly retained, charged analytes was performed via voltage-assisted micro-HPLC. Contrary to conclusions from data analysis using the conventional definitions of the retention factor, it is shown that our approach allows us to isolate the "chromatographic retention" component and thus, investigate the "modification" of the retention process upon application of voltage in micro-HPLC. It is shown that the traditional approaches of calculating retention factor would erroneously lead to conclusion that the retention behavior of these analytes changes upon application of voltage. However, the approach suggested here demonstrates that under the conditions investigated, most of the charged analytes do not show any significant retention on the columns and that all the changes in their retention times can be attributed to their electrophoretic migration.     

Application of micellar electrokinetic chromatography to pharmaceutical analysis

Electrokinetic chromatography is a new type of analytical separation method which belongs to the group of high performance capillary electrophoretic techniques but whose separation principle is based on that of chromatography. The solute distributes itself between a carrier and the surrounding medium. The carrier, which corresponds to the stationary phase in conventional chromatography, can be transported by electrophoresis with a different velocity from the surrounding medium. The separation is achieved by the differential solute distribution and the differential migration of the carrier. The charged molecules or charged molecular aggregates are employed as the carrier. Various kinds of carriers are available for electrokinetic chromatography along with different partition mechanisms. Among them, micellar electrokinetic chromatography, which employs an ionic micelle as a carrier, has become the most popular method because of its unique and attractive characteristics as well as the separating capability of electrically neutral or nonionic solutes in comparison with capillary zone electrophoresis. The present paper describes the principle, separation characteristics and its application to the analysis of pharmaceuticals.     

Determination of impurities and counterions of pharmaceuticals by capillary electromigration methods

The review presents a survey of recent applications of high‐performance capillary electromigration methods—capillary zone electrophoresis, nonaqueous capillary electrophoresis, capillary isotachophoresis, micellar electrokinetic chromatography, microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography and capillary electrochromatography—for the determination of impurities of pharmaceuticals, including chiral impurities, for the period 2007–2013. In addition, due to the missing evaluation of the determination of counterions of pharmaceuticals by capillary electromigration methods in the last 20 years, the publications dealing with this topic since 1995 are included in this review. General aspects of both these types of applications of capillary electromigration methods in pharmaceutical analysis are discussed, and detailed experimental conditions used for determination of various chemical impurities and counterions of many particular drugs are described.     

Microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography of proteins.

Microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography was used to separate a test mixture of proteins effectively. The separation was carried out in a 42.5 cm (to the detector) x 50 microns I.D. fused-silica capillary using a microemulsion system consisting of 80 mM heptane, 120 mM SDS, 900 mM butanol in 2.5 mM borate buffer, pH 8.5-9.5. Optimum separation conditions were investigated with respect to the running voltage, temperature, pH and the composition of microemulsion. Results were compared with those obtained in micellar electrokinetic chromatography and capillary zone electrophoresis. The examined method is practical and successfully applied to the assay of genetically engineering pharmaceuticals, recombinant human granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factor injection and recombinant human granulocyte colony stimulating factor injection.     

Determination of tea catechins

An overview of analytical methods for the measurement of biologically important tea catechins is presented. Liquid chromatography and capillary electrophoresis are the most cited techniques for catechin separation, identification and quantitation. Liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection is frequently used; however, mass spectrometry, electrochemical, fluorescence and chemiluminescence detection are also utilized in cases where more sensitive or selective detection is needed. Two modes of capillary electrophoresis, capillary zone electrophoresis and micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography, have been employed for the determination of catechins. Both modes of capillary electrophoresis are based on ultraviolet detection. Additional analytical techniques, such as gas chromatography, thin-layer chromatography, paper chromatography, spectrophotometry, biosensing, chemiluminescence and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy have also been utilized for the determination of catechins and are reviewed herein.     

Analysis of nucleic acid derivatives by micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography

The use of micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography (MECC) for the analysis of the major nucleobases, nucleosides, and nucleotides, and their chemically modified derivatives, has been developed and refined. The dimensions of the separating capillaries, the composition of the buffering systems, and the conditions used for electrophoresis were investigated in order to obtain the best performance. Particular emphasis was placed on the identification of the physiological constituents of nucleic acids and their chemically modified analogs: in vitro studies on calf thymus DNA exposed to genotoxic agents have demonstrated that adducted bases and nucleolides can be identified by MECC.     

Foundations of retention in partition chromatography

The connection between the observable output in column chromatography (retention time, retention volume, retention factor, separation factor, etc.) and system properties (hold-up volume, pressure, temperature, isotherm behavior, etc.) is discussed from a practical and mechanistic perspective for gas–liquid chromatography, reversed-phase liquid chromatography, supercritical fluid chromatography, micellar electrokinetic chromatography, and capillary electrochromatography. The unifying feature of these techniques is that retention can be described by a partition model, although not always exclusively. When over simplistic system models are used to explain variation in retention parameters they frequently mask the true reasons for poor repeatability and difficulties in transfer between system. Methods employing relative retention afford higher precision but may contain residual uncorrected errors. For those systems with several separate mechanisms contributing to retention the effective retention parameters can no longer be interpreted by simple partition models. The broadly based and practically focused material in this article affords an illustration of the often complicated relationship between system properties and retention, and the dangers that lurk in simplified retention models if the validity of their underlining approximations is not appropriate for the system under study.     

Chemometric modeling of neurotransmitter amino acid separation in normal and reversed migration micellar electrokinetic chromatography

A chemometric experimental design has been applied for the optimization of neurotransmitter amino acid separation in capillary electrophoresis. The optimizations were carried out for normal micellar electrokinetic chromatography (N-MEKC) and reversed migration micellar electrokinetic chromatography (RM-MEKC). In order to optimize three separation factors and study the interaction between factors, a response function was optimized via searching its optimum (minimum/maximum). For this purpose a central composite design with multivariate linear regression (MLR) analysis was utilized. Modeling with good regression coefficients from the MLR adequately described the interaction of factors such as background electrolyte and sodium dodecylsulfate concentrations which had a large impact on selectivity and migration behaviors. Similar optimal conditions regarding resolution and number of theoretical plates but different retention behaviors as a function of background electrolyte and micellar concentrations were observed for N-MEKC and RM-MEKC. Improved overall performance from the RM-MEKC separation of five neurotransmitter acids, superior to N-MEKC, is demonstrated in terms of repeatability, peak symmetry, sensitivity, and in particular, impurity determination in an overloaded separation system.