Retention of ionisable compounds on high-performance liquid chromatography: XIX. pH variation in mobile phases containing formic acid,piperazine and tris as buffering systems and methanol as organic modifier

In previous works a model to estimate the pH of methanol–aqueous buffer mobile phases from the aqueous pH and concentration of the buffer and the fraction of organic modifier was developed. This model was successfully applied and validated for buffers prepared from ammonia, acetic, phosphoric and citric acids. In the present communication this model has been extended to formic acid, piperazine and tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane buffers. Prior to the modelling work, the pK_a values of the studied buffers at several methanol–water compositions were determined.     

Retention prediction in reversed-phase liquid chromatography systems with methanol/water mobile phases containing different alkanols as additives

In an effort to gain enhancement of selectivity in reversed-phase liquid chromatography, retention was tuned in this study by introducing short and medium straight-chained-length alkanol additives (methanol (MeOH), ethanol, 1-propanol, 1-butanol, 1-pentanol, 1-hexanol or 1-heptanol) at low concentrations in mobile phases containing MeOH as the main organic solvent. A six-parameter retention model considering simultaneously the contents of the main organic modifier and of the alcohol additive as well as of the number of alkyl chain of additive was developed by a direct combination of equations expressing separately a linear dependence of the retention upon each of these factors. The effectiveness of the above model was tested in the retention prediction of a mixture of six alkylbenzenes under isocratic conditions with mobile phases containing as an additive any member of the homologues series of alkanols (with 1-7 carbon atoms) at different low concentrations in a wide range of MeOH-water mixtures. The prediction was excellent in all cases even when the alkanol additives used in experiments for the fitting procedure are different than those used in chromatographic runs done for testing the prediction ability of the proposed model.     

Retention models for ionizable compounds in reversed-phase liquid chromatography: Effect of variation of mobile phase composition and temperature

General models in reversed-phase liquid chromatography that have been extended to relate retention of ionizable compounds to mobile phase composition, pH and/or temperature are reviewed. In particular, the fundamentals and applications of the solvation parameter model, the polarity parameter model and several classical models based on empirical equations are presented and compared. A main parameter in all these models is the degree of ionization of the acid–base compound, which depends on both the pH of the mobile phase and the acid–base constant of the compound. Thus, on one hand, the different procedures for pH measurement in the mobile phase and their influence on the performance of the models are outlined. On the other hand, equations that relate the variation of the pH of the buffer and the pK_a of the compound with the mobile phase composition and/or temperature are reviewed and their applicability to the retention models critically discussed.     

Peptide mapping with mobile phases of intermediate pH value using capillary reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography/electrospray ionisation tandem mass spectrometry

This investigation describes the separation of tryptic peptides by capillary reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) with eluents in the intermediate pH range, followed by in-line electrospray ionisation tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS) analysis. For these purposes, gradient elution procedures with an aqueous eluent containing 20 mM ammonium formate, and an increasing content of acetonitrile or methanol, were employed. Compared to the analysis of the same tryptic peptides under low-pH conditions with an ion-pairing reagent, the increase in the pH with the 20 mM ammonium formate mobile phase led to significant changes in both peptide retention to the reversed-phase column and the collision-induced dissociation at the MS/MS stage as a consequence of the changes in the physico-chemical properties of these peptides, such as their overall charge, polarity and relative hydrophobicity. Thus, improved selectivity for the peptide separation and favourable tandem mass spectrometry analysis could be obtained with eluents in this intermediate pH range. The number of tryptic peptides identified by the new approach for the proteins investigated were significantly higher than that obtained by the conventional low-pH methods. Moreover, analysis of protein digests at very low concentrations was also performed under both acidic and intermediate pH conditions and similar improvements in selectivity and MS/MS detection limits were observed, i.e. identification of more distinct peptides and higher sequence coverage of the protein was obtained when eluents of intermediate pH were employed. This study therefore highlights the potential of conducting peptide mapping in the intermediate pH range to achieve more reliable and sensitive protein identifications with capillary RP-HPLC–ESI-MS/MS.