Simultaneous Chemiluminometric Determination of Levodopa and Benserazide in a Multi-pumping Flow System with Multivariate Calibration

An automated multi-pumping flow system is proposed for the simultaneous chemiluminometric determination of benserazide and levodopa using multivariate calibration methods. The developed methodology is based on chemiluminescence (CL) emission generated by the reaction of benserazide with luminol, and on a concurrent inhibiting effect of levodopa on this reaction. A multi-pumping flow system comprising multiple solenoid micro-pumps as the only active components was developed to implement a stopped-flow approach for signal acquisition and processing. Artificial neural networks were used to establish a relationship between the CL emission profile and the concentration of both drugs. The concentration values used to establish the experimental calibration samples were varied between 5 and 30 mg l(-1) for levodopa and between 2.5 and 20 mg l(-1) for benserazide. The proposed method was successfully applied to the simultaneous determination of levodopa and benserazide in pharmaceutical formulations combining both drugs.     

Voltammetric Studies and Determination of Levodopa and Carbidopa in Pharmaceutical Products

In this paper, the possibility of analyzing levodopa and carbidopa by differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) utilizing a glassy carbon electrode in 0.1 mol L^?1 HClO₄ is reported. Cyclic voltammograms of levodopa show a redox couple with anodic and cathodic peak potentials at 0.58 V and 0.52 V (vs. Ag/AgCl), respectively. For carbidopa, there are two oxidation waves with maximum currents at 0.53 V and 1.02 V, without any cathodic counterpart at slow enough scan rate. Since in such conditions, the oxidation product of carbidopa does not undergo reduction, it is possible to analyze levodopa without interference. On the other hand, carbidopa can be determined between 0.85 V and 1.1 V in the presence of levodopa, coating the electrode with a Nafion film, which is selective for carbidopa. The developed methodology was applied to two different commercial samples of pharmaceutical products. The obtained data were compared with the results of the analysis by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with UV detection, showing good correlation (relative errors changing between 0.4% and 3.5%) and absence of interference of the other components that accompanied the pharmaceuticals.     

Quality control of benserazide-levodopa and carbidopa-levodopa tablets by capillary zone electrophoresis

In modern practice, the treatment of Parkinson's disease and syndrome is carried out using pharmaceutical formulations containing a combination of levodopa and a decarboxylation inhibitor (carbidopa or benserazide). Two pharmaceutical formulations were quantified by capillary zone electrophoresis using two procedures which differed only in the kind of background electrolyte used. One procedure used a 25 mM phosphate buffer, pH 2.5, while the second one used a 25 mM borate buffer, pH 8.5. The electrophoretic analysis was carried out using an uncoated fused- silica capillary, a separation voltage of 20 kV with currents typically less than 60 microA, and spectrophotometric detection at 205 nm. Calibration curves were performed for levodopa (concentration range 1-100 microg/mL), for carbidopa and benserazide (1-50 microg/mL), and the plots of the peak area versus concentration were found to be linear with a correlation coefficient better than 0.9990. Satisfactory results were obtained when commercial tablets were analyzed in terms of accuracy (98-102%), repeatability (0.6-2.0%), and intermediate precision (1.1-2.6%).     

Simultaneous spectrophotometric determination of levodopa and carbidopa in pharmaceutical formulations and water samples by using mean centering of ratio spectra and H-point standard addition methods

Two spectrophotometric methods are described for the simultaneous determination of binary mixtures of carbidopa and levodopa in pharmaceutical formulations, without prior separation steps, using the mean centering of ratio spectra and H-point standard addition methods (HPSAM). The methods are based on the difference in the absorption spectra for the products of the reaction of carbidopa and levodopa with 4-aminobenzoic acid in the presence of periodate ion at pH 4.0. The methods allow rapid and accurate determination of carbidopa and levodopa. The results showed that the methods were capable to simultaneous determination of 0.30-10.00 microg ml(-1) and 0.50-10.00 microg ml(-1) each of carbidopa and levodopa. The proposed methods were successfully applied to the simultaneous determination of carbidopa and levodopa in pharmaceutical samples.     

Estimation of the composition of recombinant human erythropoietin mixtures using capillary electrophoresis and multivariate calibration methods

A multivariate calibration method using partial least-squares (PLS) is proposed in order to characterize binary mixtures of two types of recombinant human erythropoietin (epoetin alpha and beta), based on the analysis of the highly overlapped UV-electrophoretic profiles obtained with the CE methodology recommended by the European Pharmacopoeia (EurPh). A two-factor PLS-1 model was developed and validated using mixtures of alpha and beta epoetins. Glycoforms were identified according to their effective electrophoretic mobility values and the normalized area values of each glycoform peak were used as multivariate data. Calibration and validation results were satisfactory. The PLS-1 model was successfully used for determination of epoetin alpha and beta contents in the rHuEPO provided by the EurPh as a biological reference product.     

Determination of bromhexine in cough-cold syrups by absorption spectrophotometry and multivariate calibration using partial least-squares and hybrid linear analyses. Application of a novel method of wavelength selection

The mucolitic bromhexine [N-(2-amino-3,5-dibromobenzyl)-N-methylcyclohexylamine] has been determined in cough suppressant syrups by multivariate spectrophotometric calibration, together with partial least-squares (PLS-1) and hybrid linear analysis (HLA). Notwithstanding the spectral overlapping between bromhexine and syrup excipients, as well as the intrinsic variability of the latter in unknown samples, the recoveries are excellent. A novel method of wavelength selection was also applied, based on the concept of net analyte signal regression, as adapted to the HLA methodology. This method allows one to improve the performance of both PLS-1 and HLA in samples containing nonmodeled interferences.     

Application of silver nanoparticles and principal component-artificial neural network models for simultaneous determination of levodopa and benserazide hydrochloride by a kinetic spectrophotometric method

A multicomponent analysis method based on principal component analysis-artificial neural network model (PC-ANN) is proposed for the simultaneous determination of levodopa (LD) and benserazide hydrochloride (BH). The method is based on the reaction of levodopa and benserazide hydrochloride with silver nitrate as an oxidizing agent in the presence of PVP and formation of silver nanoparticles. The reaction monitored at analytical wavelength 440 nm related to surface plasmon resonance band of silver nanoparticles. Differences in the kinetic behavior of the levodopa and benserazide hydrochloride were exploited by using principal component analysis, an artificial neural network (PC-ANN) to resolve concentration of analytes in their mixture. After reducing the number of kinetic data using principal component analysis, an artificial neural network consisting of three layers of nodes was trained by applying a back-propagation learning rule. The optimized ANN allows the simultaneous determination of analytes in mixtures with relative standard errors of prediction in the region of 4.5 and 6.3 for levodopa and benserazide hydrochloride respectively. The results show that this method is an efficient method for prediction of these analytes.     

Simultaneous kinetic-spectrophotometric determination of carbidopa, levodopa and methyldopa in the presence of citrate with the aid of multivariate calibration and artificial neural networks

The kinetic methodology based on the difference of reaction rates, is based on the reaction between a common oxidizing agents such as tris(1,10-phenanthroline) and iron(III) complex (ferriin, [Fe (phen)₃]³⁺) in the presence of citrate and spectrophotometrically, monitoring the changes of absorbance at the maximum wavelength of 511 nm. Experimental conditions such as pH, reagents and citrate concentrations were optimized, and the data obtained from the experiments were processed by several chemometric approaches, such as artificial neural network (ANN) and partial least squares (PLS). A set of synthetic mixtures of carbidopa (CD), levodopa (LD) and methyldopa (MD) was evaluated and the results obtained by the applications of these chemometric approaches were discussed and compared. It was found that the back propagation artificial neural network (BP-ANN) method afforded better precision relatively than those of radial basis function artificial neural networks (RBF-ANN) and PLS. The proposed method was also applied satisfactorily to the determination of carbidopa, levodopa and methyldopa in real samples.     

Elimination of spectral interferences in the reaction of 2-thiobarbituric acid with malonaldehyde, 2-furfuraldehyde and 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furfuraldehyde by partial least squares multivariate calibration (PLS)

Summary The spectral resolution of ternary mixtures of malonaldehyde (MLD), 2-furfuraldehyde (FUR) and 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furfuraldehyde (HMF) in the presence of glyoxal and biliverdine is achieved by partial least squares multivariate calibration (PLS). The spectrophotometric method is based on the reaction of these substances with 2-thiobarbituric acid (TBA). A calibration set of standard samples has been statistically designed in the presence of adequate amounts of both interferent compounds in several degrees of concentration. The possibility of a spectrophotometric determination of mixtures of MLD, FUR and HMF in the presence of glyoxal and biliverdine is demonstrated. A comparative study of the results found by application of PLS-1 and PLS-2 methods is presented.     

Development and validation of chemometrics-assisted spectrophotometry and liquid chromatography methods for the simultaneous determination of the active ingredients in two multicomponent mixtures containing chlorpheniramine maleate and phenylpropanolamine hydrochloride

Multivariate spectrophotometric calibration and liquid chromatography (LC) methods were used for the simultaneous determination of the active ingredients in 2 multicomponent mixtures containing chlorpheniramine maleate and phenylpropanolamine hydrochloride with ibuprofen and caffeine (mixture 1) or with propyphenazone (mixture 2). For the multivariate spectrophotometric calibration methods, principal component regression (PCR) and partial least squares (PLS-1), a calibration set of the mixtures consisting of the components of each mixture was prepared in distilled water. A leave-1-out cross-validation procedure was used to find the optimum numbers of latent variables. Analytical parameters such as sensitivity, selectivity, analytical sensitivity, limit of quantitation, and limit of detection were determined for both PLS-1 and PCR. The LC method depends on the use of a cyanopropyl column with the mobile phase acetonitrile-12 mM ammonium acetate, pH 5.0 (25 + 75, v/v), for mixture 1 or acetonitrile-10 mM potassium dihydrogen phosphate, pH 4.7 (45 + 55, v/v), for mixture 2; the UV detector was set at 212 nm. In spite of the presence of a high degree of spectral overlap of these components, they were rapidly and simultaneously determined with high accuracy and precision, with no interference from the matrix excipients. The proposed methods were successfully applied to the analysis of pharmaceutical formulations and laboratory-prepared mixtures containing the 2 multicomponent combinations.     

Sensitive detection of salbutamol using europium-enhanced fluorescence with trioctylphosphine oxide (TOPO) as coligand

In this work a simple and sensitive fluorimetric method for determination of salbutamol (4-[2-(tert-butylamino)-1-hydroxyethyl]-2-(hydroxymethyl) phenol) using an Eu enhanced signal was developed. The employed methodology is based on the formation of a ternary complex formed with Eu, salbutamol and trioctylphosphine oxide (TOPO). Intermolecular transfer of energy from the excited organic molecule to the lanthanide followed by lanthanide emission is responsible for excitation of the lanthanide ion in complex solutions and fluorescent enhancement. The luminescence properties of the ternary complex formed with TOPO and optimum formation conditions were investigated. The calibration curve is linear in the range between 6.92-180 microg l(-1) of salbutamol. The detection limit was 2.31 microg l(-1). Common excipients for these formulations were not found to interfere. A proposed method for the assay in commercial aerosols and nebulizer solutions containing salbutamol was applied with very good precision.     

Improvement of multivariate calibration techniques applied to 1-to-N component mixtures through an optimized experimental design

This work describes a novel experimental design aimed at building a calibration set constituted by samples containing a different number of components. The algorithm performs a reiteration process to maintain the number of samples at the lower value as possible and to ensure an homogeneous presence of all the concentration levels. The mixture design was applied to a drug system composed by one-to-four components in different combination. The resolution of the system was performed by three multivariate UV spectrophotometric methods utilizing principal component regression (PCR) and partial last squares (PLS1 and PLS2) algorithms. The calibration set was composed by 61 references on four concentration levels, including 15 samples for each quaternary, ternary and binary composition and 16 one-component samples. The calibration models were optimized through a careful selection of number of factors and wavelength zones, in such a way as to remove interferences from instrumental noise and excipients present in the pharmaceutical formulations. The prediction power of the regression models were verified and compared by analysis of an external prediction set. The models were finally used to assay pharmaceutical specialities containing the studied drugs in one-to-four formulations.     

Trace determination of carbendazim, fuberidazole and thiabendazole in water by application of multivariate calibration to cross-sections of three-dimensional excitation-emission matrix fluorescence

The simultaneous determination of carbendazim, fuberidazole and thiabendazole was accomplished by cross-section (CS) fluorimetry in combination with multivariate calibration algorithms. The total luminescence information of the compounds was used to optimise the linear trajectories of the CS. A comparison between principal component regression (PCR) and two partial least squares (PLS) algorithms, PLS-1 and PLS-2, with different pre-processing methodologies was made. The final model, which applied the PLS-1 method, built using pesticide standard and emission spectra, was successfully used for the determination of these compounds in synthetic mixtures. However, a different PLS-1 multivariate calibration model, based on CS through the total luminescence spectroscopic data, was necessary for determining the cited pesticides in water samples. Mean centring was the best pre-processing technique in both PLS-1 models. This later calibration model was built from ultra-pure water samples spiked with known carbendazim, fuberidazole and thiabendazole concentrations, after solid-phase extraction (SPE). The method, which had a precision better than 5%, was shown to be suitable for carbendazim, fuberidazole and thiabendazole monitoring in water samples at trace levels.     

Bioavailability studies of oral dosage forms containing levodopa and carbidopa using column-switching chromatography followed by electrochemical detection

A reliable multi-dimensional column chromatographic method employing amperometric detection using a carbon fibre microelectrode procedure was used for monitoring the plasma profiles and to evaluate the pharmacokinetics and bioavailability of levodopa (L-dopa) and carbidopa (C-dopa), after ingestion of oral formulations containing these drugs. The peak currents obtained for the different analytes were directly proportional to the analyte over the concentration range 0.02-4 micrograms ml-1. Using this method, the minimum detectable concentration was estimated to be 5 and 8 ng ml-1 for L-dopa and C-dopa, respectively. Recovery studies ranged from 93.83 to 89.76%, with a relative standard deviation of less than 7%. The study was carried out in two separate weeks on five healthy non-patient fasted male/female volunteers in the age range 20-37 years and weighing between 60 kg and 78 kg. The pharmacokinetic profile of two controlled-release products containing both L-dopa and C-dopa (Sinemet CR3 and CR4) was compared on the one hand and Sinemet conventional tablets on the other. The pharmacokinetic parameters, peak concentration (Cmax), the time taken to obtain this level (Tmax), elimination half-time T1/2, elimination rate constant (Kel), plasma level ratio, fluctuation index (FI) and the area under the time-concentration curve (AUC0-8), were investigated for each individual formulation. A comparison of the uptake of L-dopa from the conventional formulation showed that L-dopa entered the plasma and achieved peak levels higher than that of the controlled release formulations. However, it showed a much higher fluctuation index and the plasma concentrations were more stable with the controlled release formulations. The data also indicated a very low accumulation of both levodopa and carbidopa following repeated administration of the drugs, which was consistent with their relatively short half-lives (less than 2 h). In contrast, the half-life for the metabolite 3-orthomethyl dopa (3-OMD) is in the order of 13 h. As a result, there was an extensive accumulation of 3-OMD and its levels were significantly higher than those of levodopa or carbidopa upon repeated administration. Urine recoveries of the three analytes over one 8 h dosing interval showed that the majority of the excreted levodopa and carbidopa was recovered during the first 4 h, and there is proportionally greater excretion of the carbidopa dose than the levodopa dose.     

Voltammetric Study and Direct Analytical Determination of the Antiparkinson Drug Benserazide

For the first time, a simple differential pulse voltammetry methodology for direct determination of benserazide in presence of levodopa in tablets was developed without any redox mediator, modified electrodes, or the aplication of mathematic deconvolution of signals. Benserazide was studied by differential pulse voltammetry using glassy carbon electrode in aqueous media. The drug exhibited a main well-defined oxidation signal in a broad pH range (2–10), and two poorly resolved signals at higher potentials. We have found that levodopa does not interfere on the electrochemical response of benserazide at pH 6.0. Thus, at this pH value, the developed analytical method exhibited adequate repeatability and reproducibility (RSD < 2%), recoveries >98.5%, which permitted its successful application to both the assay and the uniformity content of benserazide. Also, hydrolytic degradation studies of benserazide were carried out by differential pulse voltammetry.     

New validated liquid chromatographic and chemometrics-assisted UV spectroscopic methods for the determination of two multicomponent cough mixtures in syrup

Multivariate spectrophotometric calibration and liquid chromatographic (LC) methods were applied to the determination of 2 multicomponent mixtures containing diprophylline, guaiphenesin, methylparaben, and propylparaben (Mixture 1), or clobutinol, orciprenaline, saccharin sodium, and sodium benzoate (Mixture 2). For the multivariate spectrophotometric calibration methods, principal component regression (PCR) and partial least-squares regression (PLS-1), a calibration set of the mixtures consisting of the components of each mixture was prepared in 0.1 M HCl. Analytical figures of merit such as sensitivity, selectivity, limit of quantitation, and limit of detection were determined for both PLS-1 and PCR. The LC separation was achieved on a reversed-phase C18 analytical column by using isocratic elution with 20 mM potassium dihydrogen phosphate, pH 3.3-acetonitrile (55 + 45, v/v) as the mobile phase and UV detection at 260 and 220 nm for Mixture 1 and Mixture 2, respectively. The proposed methods were validated and successfully applied to the analysis of pharmaceutical formulations and laboratory-prepared mixtures containing the 2 multicomponent combinations.     

Simultaneous Spectrophotometric Determination of Levodopa and Benserazide in a Pharmaceutical

ABSTRACT

A method based on a partial least-squares calibration (PLS) for the simultaneous spectrophotometric determination of levodopa (I) and benserazide (II) in a commercially available pharmaceutical preparation is proposed. The calibration procedure was developped by using laboratory made mixtures of I and II, and optimized by selecting the most suitable wavelength range and spectral mode. The relative standard error of prediction (RSEP %) was 0.5% and 0.9% with a limiting reproducibility (R) of 4 10^?6 M and 1.5 10^?6 M for levodopa and benserazide, respectively The proposed method is straightforward, expeditious and precise. Its results are consistent with those provided by HPLC for the two analytes.     

NIR analysis of pharmaceutical samples without reference data: improving the calibration

Using an appropriate set of samples to construct the calibration set is crucial with a view to ensuring accurate multivariate calibration of NIR spectroscopic data. In this work, we developed and optimized a new methodology for incorporating physical variability in pharmaceutical production based on the NIR spectrum for the process. Such a spectrum contains the spectral changes caused by each treatment applied to the component mixture during the production process. The proposed methodology involves adding a set of process spectra (viz. difference spectra between those for production tablets and a laboratory mixture of identical nominal composition) to the set of laboratory samples, which span the wanted concentration range, in order to construct a calibration set incorporating all physical changes undergone by the samples in each step of the production process. The best calibration model among those tested was selected by establishing the influence of spectral pretreatments used to obtain the process spectrum and construct the calibration models, and also by determining the multiplying factor m to be applied to the process spectra in order to ensure incorporation of all variability sources into the calibration model. The specific samples to be included in the calibration set were selected by principal component analysis (PCA). To this end, the new methodology for constructing calibration sets for determining the Active Principle Ingredients (API) and excipients was applied to Irbesartan tablets and validated by application to the API and excipients of paracetamol tablets. The proposed methodology provides simple, robust calibration models for determining the different components of a pharmaceutical formulation.     

Resolution of ternary mixtures of salicylic, salicyluric and gentisic acids by partial least squares and principal component regression: Optimization of the scanning path in the excitation-emission matrices

The resolution of ternary mixtures of salicylic, salicyluric and gentisic acids has been accomplished by partial least squares (PLS) and principal component regression (PCR) multivariate calibration. The total luminescence information of the compounds has been used to optimize the spectral data set to perform the calibration. A comparison between the predictive ability of the three multivariate calibration methods, PLS-1, PLS-2 and PCR, on three spectral data sets, excitation, emission and synchronous spectra, has been performed. The excitation spectrum has been the best scanning path for salicylic and salicyluric acid determinations, while the emission spectrum has been the best for the gentisic acid determination. The convenience of analysing the total luminescence spectrum information when using multivariate calibration methods on fluorescence data is demonstrated.     

Voltammetric behavior and determination of tocopherols with partial least squares calibration: analysis in vegetable oil samples

The voltammetric behavior of Vitamin E in the presence of olive oil is studied at the glassy carbon electrode, in a hexane-ethanol medium, with diverse techniques: sampled DC, differential pulse, and square-wave voltammetry. The influence of such variables as the hexane-ethanol proportion, sulfuric acid concentration, and instrumental parameters is studied. Separate voltammetric peaks are obtained for α-tocopherol and δ-tocopherol, but the peaks for β-tocopherol and γ-tocopherol overlap. For the simultaneous determination of α-, β+γ-, and δ-tocopherols in vegetable oils by the PLS-1 multivariate calibration method, the results using sampled DC and DPV voltammograms are compared. The DPV voltammograms are found to be the best data set. The proposed method is applied to the determination of the tocopherols in different vegetable oil samples. The olive oil samples needed a prior cleaning stage by solid-phase extraction on silica cartridges. The results are very acceptable.