Ultrafast reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic separations: an overview

Ultrafast reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) separations are often needed for analyses related to combinatorial chemistry, studies in liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, and other applications in which very rapid sample turnaround is paramount. Unfortunately, no consensus exists regarding the best column technology for optimally performing the desired rapid separations. This overview compares the advantages and limitations for columns of ultramicroporous, ultramicrononporous, and superficially porous particles and monolith structures for the very fast separation of solutes by reversed-phase HPLC. Data from literature and the author's laboratory are used to illustrate the strengths and limitations of the various approaches that can be used for ultrafast separations.     

Pyrolysis of reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic packing materials

Pyrolysis coupled with gas chromatography and or mass spectrometry, allows the identification of the bonded chain in reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic stationary phases. It is possible to distinguish whether an octadecylated reversed-phase was prepared with a trifunctional(e.g., trichloro or monofunctional dimethyl, e.g., dimethyl-ethoxy) octadecylsilane from the relative heights of the heptadecene and octadecene peaks. The nature of the pyrolysis products was investigated. No carbon chains are formed with more carbon atoms than in the bonded chain. The peak area ratio of methane to that of the combined C₄ products allows one to deduce whether the reversed-phase was deactivated as not by reaction with a trimethylsilylating reagent (end-capping).     

Gradient reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic separation of naturally occurring retinoids

A gradient reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic technique is described for the facile separation and quantitation of the naturally occurring retinoids: retinoic acid, retinol, and retinyl esters. An octadecylsilane column (Waters mu Bondapak C18) is used, with gradient elution from methanol--water (80:20) (solvent A) to 70% or 100% methanol--tetrahydrofuran (50:50) (solvent B) at 2.0 ml/min; detection is by absorbance at 325 nm. Analysis can be completed, with return to starting conditions, in 25-30 min. The method is inherently flexible: retinyl esters can be eluted as a group, with little resolution, by gradient to 100% solvent B, or mostly resolved by gradient to 70% solvent B; separation of retinoids more polar than retinoic acid can be achieved by use of greater proportions of water in solvent A. The separation of vitamin A compounds from extracts of human, rat, and pig liver and from rat kidney by this technique is described.     

Automated high-performance liquid chromatographic assay of enzymatic activities

High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is a powerful technique which enables a reliable and quantitative determination of enzyme activities. The purpose of the work reported here was to develop an automatic assay of enzymatic activity. Using an automatic sample processor and injector, a program was developed which allows the complete automation of each step of analysis (calibration, enzymatic reaction, HPLC determination). This program can be adapted to different experimental requirements as each step can be performed independently and each input (time, volume, number of standards) is made by answering questions asked by instrument. Using this approach both kinetic and single-point determinations can be carried out, and in the latter case different samples can be analysed sequentially. This paper reports the automated analysis of trypsin.     

Stereospecific high-performance liquid chromatographic assay of metoprolol.

A valid, sensitive high-performance liquid chromatographic technique is reported for the separation of the two enantiomers of metoprolol in human plasma. The procedure involves pre-column derivatization with the homochiral reagent S-(+)-1-(1-naphthyl)ethyl isocyanate. Once formed, the diastereomers are separated using normal-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. Fluorescence detection (220 nm excitation; no emission filter) was utilized, resulting in baseline resolution (Rs greater than 1.5). The peaks corresponding to metoprolol enantiomers were free from interference throughout the examined range of 5-500 ng/ml; accuracy and precision were within approximately 10%. Analysis of a plasma sample collected from a healthy volunteer demonstrated that the assay is applicable to clinical studies.     

A reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic method to analyze retinal isomers

A high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) procedure was developed to separate all-trans-, 13-cis-, 11-cis- and 9-cis-retinal isomers. Two reversed-phase Vydac C18 columns in series were used with an isocratic solvent system of 0.1 M ammonium acetate-acetonitrile (40:60, v/v) as mobile phase and all-trans-9-(4-methoxy-2,3,6-trimethylphenyl)-3,7-dimethyl-2,4,6,8-no natetraene-1-ol (TMMP) as internal standard. Prior to HPLC, the retinal isomers were efficiently extracted in their original isomeric conformation using dichloromethane-n-hexane in the presence of formaldehyde. This technique is suitable for the assay of 11-cis- and all-trans-retinal isomers in retina.     

Stability-indicating high-performance liquid chromatographic assay of buspirone HCl

The United States Pharmacopoeia high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) assay method of buspirone is not able to discriminate buspirone from its degradation products. The purpose of this work is to develop a sensitive, selective, and validated stability-indicating HPLC assay for the analysis of a buspirone hydrochloride in a bulk drug. Buspirone HCI and its potential impurities and degradation products are analyzed on an Ultrasphere C18 column heated to 40 degrees C using a gradient program that contains monobasic potassium phosphate buffer solution (pH 6.9) and acetonitrile-methanol mixture (13:17) of 35% for 5 minutes, then increased to 54% in 5.5 minutes. The samples are monitored using a photo-diode array detector and integrated at 244 and 210 nm. The stress testing of buspirone HCI shows that buspirone acid hydrochloride is the major degradation product. The developed method shows a separation of buspirone degradation product and its potential impurities in one run. The stability of buspirone HCI is studied under accelerated conditions in order to provide a rapid indication of differences that might result from a change in the manufacturing process or source of the sample. The forced degradation conditions include the effect of heat, moisture, light, acid-base hydrolysis, sonication, and oxidation. The compatibility of buspirone HCI with some pharmaceutical excipients is studied under stress conditions. The linear range of buspirone HCI is between 5 and 200 ng/microL with a limit of quantitation of 2.5 ng/microL. The intraassay percentage deviation is not more than 0.38%, and the day-to-day variation was not more than 0.80%. The selectivity, repeatability, linearity, range, accuracy, sample solution stability, ruggedness, and robustness show acceptable values.     

High-efficiency preparative-scale reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic purification of 14C-labelled antibiotics

The 14C-labelled antibiotics [2-14C]mupirocin, and [thienyl-3-14C]temocillin cannot be satisfactorily purified on a small scale by conventional methods of chromatography or recrystallisation. Their purification was successfully achieved by high-efficiency preparative-scale reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. The purifications employed 250 mm X 10 mm I.D. or 22 mm I.D. stainless-steel columns packed with Merck LiChrosorb RP-18 (10 microns) stationary phase which were eluted with aqueous buffer solutions at flow-rates of 10-25 ml min-1 using conventional analytical instrumentation.     

Characterization of reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic stationary phases using ribonuclease A

The protein ribonuclease A (RNase A) represents a good model protein for studying reversible conformational refolding during gradient elution. Work is described utilizing RNase A under gradient conditions to evaluate several different reversed-phase materials. Columns (10 cm x 4.6 mm I.D.) were packed with Partisil C18, Vydac C18, Nucleosil C4, Nucleosil C18 and an adamantyl-modified Partisil silica. Measurements of the apparent first-order rate constant of refolding, as a function of temperature, are presented and compared for each stationary phase. Comparisons of peak shapes as functions of flow-rate and temperature are also discussed.     

Choosing an equivalent replacement column for a reversed-phase liquid chromatographic assay procedure

The column selectivity parameters (H, S*, A, B and C) described in the preceding paper [L.R. Snyder, A. Maule, A. Heebsch, R. Cuellar, S. Paulson, J. Carrano, L. Wrisley C.C. Chan, N. Pearson, J.W. Dolan, J.J. Gilroy, J. Chromatogr. A 1057 (2004) 49-57] can be used to compare columns in terms of selectivity. A detailed procedure for such column comparisons is presented here, and evaluated by its use in finding suitable replacement columns for 12 different routine separations performed in five different pharmaceutical analysis laboratories.     

Optimization of high-performance liquid chromatographic analysis for isoxazolyl penicillins using factorial design

A 3 X 3 factorial design has been used to study the effects of pH and acetonitrile concentration of the eluents on the retention and resolution of cloxacillin, flucloxacillin and dicloxacillin on a C18 column. The logarithm of the capacity factors of these solutes have been found to vary linearly with the pH and quadratically with the acetonitrile content. The equations generated have been employed to predict experimental conditions necessary for an optimum separation. The chromatographic condition selected has been applied to the quantitation of flucloxacillin in human plasma using dicloxacillin as the interval standard. Sample preparation consists of protein precipitation and solid-phase extraction. The detection limit of the assay at 220 nm for flucloxacillin is in the region of 0.1 microgram/ml. This assay has been employed in a study of the relative bioavailability of two commercial flucloxacillin sodium capsules in ten healthy volunteers.     

Analytical methodology for the determination of aflatoxins in peanut butter: comparison of high-performance thin-layer chromatographic, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and high-performance liquid chromatographic methods

High-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) was applied to the separation and quantification of aflatoxin in 300 jars of "crunchy" peanut butter. A critical evaluation of the proposed HPTLC method has been carried out by statistical comparisons with a commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit and a high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method. The statistical tests indicated that whilst the distributions of the data sets obtained with each method were similar, the HPLC method was found to be biased. Over-all results indicated that the HPTLC method gave more consistent data, relatively lower standard deviations and lower coefficients of variation. The ELISA kit was found to be less precise than the HPTLC and HPLC methods and prone to some loss of sensitivity caused by matrix interference.     

Stability-indicating high-performance liquid chromatographic assay method and photostability of carprofen

A rapid, sensitive, and accurate stability-indicating high-performance liquid chromatographic assay method for determining the degradation of carprofen (CPF) is developed and validated under acidic, basic, or photo-irradiated conditions. The analysis is monitored with a Cosmosil 5C18-AR column using a mobile phase of CH3CN-H2O-AcOH (50:49:1, v/v/v) at 260 nm. The developed method satisfies the system suitability criteria, peak integrity, and resolution among the parent drug and its degradation products. The results indicate that the established assay method shows good selectivity and specificity suitable for stability measurements of CPF. CPF is found to be more sensitive to exposure to light and in acidic conditions, but it is stable in a basic medium. The kinetic study of the photodegradation of CPF follows an apparent first-order reaction in a variety of solvents. The solvent effects on the rates of degradation are in the decreasing order of chloroform > dichloromethane > methanol > ethanol > 2-propanol, which is irrelevant to the dielectric constant epsilon. However, the hydrogen-donating ability of the solvents is essential to the photochemical decomposition of CPF. A plot of log k versus the Kirkwood function exhibits a linear relationship in aqueous ethanolic solutions, which implies that degradation proceeds via an ionic mechanism.     

Isocratic reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic separation of tetracyclines and flumequine controlled by a chaotropic effect

Fast isocratic reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic (RP-HPLC) separation of four tetracyclines and flumequine was obtained using a Zorbax SB-C18 column. Baseline resolution was achieved in 11 min. The peaks were narrow, well separated and without any tails although there was no chelating agents added to the mobile phase. Due to the chaotropic effect, the addition of potassium perchlorate allowed controlling the tetracyclines retention while the retention of flumequine was almost constant.     

Rapid assay for tryptophanase using reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography.

A rapid and sensitive high-performance liquid-chromatographic assay for tryptophanase based upon the fluorometric measurement of the enzymatically liberated indole was developed. The total incubation time is 20 min, and the reversed-phase separation is fast (elution time of indole in 8 min) and reproducible. The sensitivity of the method is in the nanomole range. This method was tested in the assay of tryptophanase activity in E. coli, giving an average activity of 6589.6 U/g of cells. Because of its speed, high sensitivity and minimal sample preparation, this method circumvents several problems commonly encountered in standard spectrophotometric methods of analysis.