Single‐run capillary electrophoresis method for the fast simultaneous determination of amoxicillin,clavulanate, and potassium

We report a new fast method for the simultaneous determination of amoxicillin, clavulanate, and potassium by capillary electrophoresis with capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection. Samples containing potassium as the cation, and both amoxicillin and clavulanate as anions were determined simultaneously in a single run (in less than 45 s) using 10 mmol/L of both 2‐amino‐2‐hydroxymethyl‐propane‐1,3‐diol and 3‐{[2‐hydroxy‐1,1‐bis(hydroxymethyl)ethyl]amino}‐1‐propanesulfonic acid (pH 8.4) as the background electrolyte. Limits of detection were 25.0, 5.0, and 4.0 μmol/L for amoxicillin, clavulanate, and potassium, respectively. The proposed method is inexpensive, simple, fast (75 injections h⁻¹), environment friendly (minimal waste generation), and accurate (recovery values between 98 and 103%). The results obtained with the proposed method were statistically similar (95% confidence level) to those obtained by using high‐performance liquid chromatography (amoxicillin and clavulanate) and flame photometry (potassium).     

Development of a fast capillary electrophoresis method for determination of creatinine in urine samples

The aim of this work was to develop a fast method using capillary electrophoresis for the determination of creatinine in human urine samples. The pH and constituents of the background electrolyte were selected by inspection of effective mobility of creatinine and candidate urine interferents versus pH curves. The tendency of the analyte to undergo electromigration dispersion and the buffer capacity were evaluated by the Peakmaster software and considered in the optimization of the background electrolyte, composed by 10 mmol L(-1) tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane and 20 mmol L(-1) 2-hydroxyisobutyric acid (HIBA) at pH 3.93. Separation was conducted in a fused-silica capillary (32 cm total length and 8.5 cm effective length, 50 microm I.D.), with short-end injection configuration and direct UV detection at 215 nm. The migration time of creatinine was only 22s. A few figures of merit of the method are as follows: good linearity in the concentration interval of 5-70 mg L(-1) (R(2)>0.99), limit of detection of 0.5 mg L(-1), inter-day precision better than 2.7% (n=9) and recovery in the range 99.0-103.7% at three concentration levels (50, 100 and 150 mg L(-1)). Urine samples were prepared by deproteination with acetonitrile (1:3 sample:acetonitrile, v/v), centrifugation and dilution of a deproteinated aliquot with 12.5 mmol L(-1) HIBA (1:4, v/v). Creatinine concentrations between 489 and 1063 mg L(-1) were obtained in the urine of four healthy volunteers.     

A new method to determine biological sample volume by short end multiple injection capillary electrophoresis: application in determination of nitrate and thiocyanate in human saliva

The aim of this study was to develop a simple and rapid method of capillary electrophoresis using a short end multiple injection in free solution to determine simultaneously the biological sample volume and analytes concentration. The method consists of a sequence of injection steps with an internal standard as the reference for correction of the volume of sample collected. The procedure was applies in the determination of NO(3)(-) and SCN in saliva samples. The background electrolyte was composed of 12 mM tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane and 8.5mM sulfuric acid, at pH 2.5. The internal standard used was BrO(3)(-). A fused silica capillary (48.5 cm total length, 8.5 cm effective length and 75 μm i.d.) coated with chitosan was used in a short-end injection configuration. Modification of the electroosmotic flow (EOF) using dynamic coating resulted in a controlled and stable EOF, contributing to the rapid separation of anions (0.36 min) in co-electroosmotic mode. The validation of the method for correcting the volume of saliva collected with a swab showed a difference of less than 3.5% compared with the predicted value and a correlation of 0.999. The limits of detection for NO(3)(-) and SCN(-) were 0.13 and 0.23 mg L(-1), respectively. The inter-day precision of the method determined for both analytes was less than 5% and the recovery ranged between 97 and 102%.     

Development of a capillary zone electrophoresis method for caseinoglycomacropeptide determination

Caseinoglycomacropeptide (CGMP) is a polypeptide of 64 amino acid residues, derived from the C-terminal part of bovine κ-casein. A sensitive and selective capillary zone electrophoresis method has been developed and validated for the analysis and quantitation of CGMP. Separation is carried out at 30 kV, using an uncoated fused-silica capillary and 20 mM sodium citrate buffer at acidic pH 3.5. The described method allows the separation of various CGMP subcomponents. The validation data proves that the method has the requisite selectivity, sensitivity, reproducibility and linearity for CGMP assay and for quality control during CGMP manufacturing (batch-to-batch reproducibility).     

Development and validation of a fast method for determination of free glycerol in biodiesel by capillary electrophoresis

In this study, a capillary electrophoresis (CE) methodology for the determination of free glycerol in biodiesel using oxidative cleavage with periodate was optimized and validated. The amount of iodate produced in the reaction was determined by CE. The optimized electrolyte was 20 mmol L(-1) glycine and 10 mmol L(-1) trifluoroacetic acid (direct UV detection, 210 nm). The short total analysis time (less than 28 s) was obtained using the short end injection mode. The optimization of the method was carried out using Peakmaster software. The choice of the components of the run electrolyte and of the internal standard (nitrate) was made through the use of effective mobility curves. A good correlation coefficient higher than 0.9991 and low LOD 4.3 mg L(-1) was obtained. The recovery of free glycerol was 95.4-102.4%. This method was used to determine glycerol in commercial biodiesel samples.     

Double‐injection capillary electrophoresis for the identification of analytes

This paper presents a new approach for identifying analytes by CE. The compound to be identified is analyzed together with the corresponding reference standard during a double injection capillary electrophoretic run. The inter‐plug distance is regulated by applying an electrical field over the capillary for a predetermined time period (t_PE). The migration time of an analyte being exposed to the partial electrophoresis was calculated from the partial migration time (t_mig(p)) as described in this paper. The identification is based on the closeness of agreement between the calculated migration time (t_mig(c)) and observed migration time (t_mig) of the reference standard. The validity of the derived equations was checked by analyzing several substances such as caffeine, melamine, acetyl salicylic acid, paracetamol, ibuprofen, metoprolol, naproxen, somatropin, several insulin analogs, as well as different pharmaceutical and natural products. The migration time ratios for the identified solutes varied between 0.996 and 1.006 (i.e., 1.001 ± 0.005), indicating good agreement between the observed and calculated migration times.     

Evaluation of ion mobility in capillary electrophoresis coupled to mass spectrometry for the identification in metabolomics

Currently, feature annotation remains one of the main challenges in untargeted metabolomics. In this context, the information provided by high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) in addition to accurate mass can improve the quality of metabolite annotation, and MS/MS fragmentation patterns are widely used. Accurate mass and a separation index, such as retention time or effective mobility (μ_eff), in chromatographic and electrophoretic approaches, respectively, must be used for unequivocal metabolite identification. The possibility of measuring collision cross-section (CCS) values by using ion mobility (IM) is becoming increasingly popular in metabolomic studies thanks to the new generation of IM mass spectrometers. Based on their similar separation mechanisms involving electric field and the size of the compounds, the complementarity of ^DTCCS_N2 and μ_eff needs to be evaluated. In this study, a comparison of ^DTCCS_N2 and μ_eff was achieved in the context of feature identification ability in untargeted metabolomics by capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) coupled with HRMS. This study confirms the high correlation of ^DTCCS_N2 with the mass of the studied metabolites as well as the orthogonality between accurate mass and μ_eff, making this combination particularly interesting for the identification of several endogenous metabolites. The use of IM-MS remains of great interest for facilitating the annotation of neutral metabolites present in the electroosmotic flow (EOF) that are poorly or not separated by CZE.     

Comparison of mobility shift affinity capillary electrophoresis and capillary electrophoresis frontal analysis for binding constant determination between human serum albumin and small drugs

In this study, two capillary electrophoresis–based ligand binding assays, namely, mobility shift affinity capillary electrophoresis (ms-ACE) and capillary electrophoresis-frontal analysis (CE-FA), were applied to determine binding parameters of human serum albumin toward small drugs under similar experimental conditions. The substances S-amlodipine (S-AML), lidocaine (LDC), l -tryptophan (l -TRP), carbamazepine (CBZ), ibuprofen (IBU), and R-verapamil (R-VPM) were used as the main binding partners. The scope of this comparative study was to estimate and compare both the assays in terms of their primary measure's precision and the reproducibility of the derived binding parameters. The effective mobility could be measured with pooled CV values between 0.55% and 7.6%. The precision of the r values was found in the range between 1.5% and 10%. Both assays were not universally applicable. The CE-FA assay could successfully be applied to measure the drugs IBU, CBZ, and LDC, and the interaction toward CBZ, S-AML, l -TRP, and R-VPM could be determined using ms-ACE. The average variabilities of the estimated binding constants were 64% and 67% for CE-FA and ms-ACE, respectively.     

Development of a capillary electrophoresis system coupled to sequential injection analysis and evaluation by the analysis of nitrophenols

A combination of a laboratory-made capillary electrophoresis system and a sequential injection analysis equipment is described. For characterization, the system was successfully applied to the separation and quantification of nitrophenols. A blue LED was used as light source, and hydrodynamic injection was carried out by using a pressure-stable solenoid valve and an inflatable pressure reservoir. A good reproducibility of migration time (0.5%) and peak heights (5%) were obtained. The calibration by using peak heights was found to be linear up to 776?µmol?L^?1 for all three compounds. The system was robust and reliable for autonomous analysis without observation. All maintenance requirements including the conditioning of the capillary and flushing of both buffer reservoirs were carried out automatically. Instrumentation aspects of the capillary electrophoresis part are compared with former described hyphenated flow systems showing maximal operation versatility. Instrumental control and data evaluation were carried out using the software package AutoAnalysis.     

Development of a stability-indicating capillary electrophoresis method for norfloxacin and its inactive decarboxylated degradant

A simple, accurate, precise, rapid and sensitive stability-indicating capillary electrophoresis (CE) method was optimized and validated for the simultaneous determination of norfloxacin and its inactive decarboxylated degradant in pharmaceuticals. The univariant method was used to optimize electrophoretic factors including injection time, separation voltage and column temperature. Electrolyte concentration and pH were optimized using the factorial design and response surface methods. The optimum conditions obtained were: 10 mmol l^− 1 phosphate at pH 2.5, hydrodynamic injection time of 8 s at pressure 0.5 p.s.i., separation voltage 25 kV and column temperature 25 °C. The separation was carried out into a fused-silica capillary column (31.2 cm length × 50 μm i.d.) with detection at 301 and 285 nm for the intact drug and the degradant, respectively using a diode array detector. For both analytes, the method enjoys wide dynamic range (1-50 μg ml^− 1) with good detectability (limits of detection 0.11 μg ml^− 1). In addition, acceptable accuracy (recovery > 95%); and good repeatability and intermediate precision (RSD < 3.5%) were obtained.     

Development and validation of a capillary electrophoresis method with ultraviolet detection for the determination of the related substances in a pharmaceutical compound

A capillary electrophoresis (CE) method was successfully developed to quantify the impurity profile of a new substance of pharmacological interest: LAS 35917. CE method was developed in order to separate the chloromethylated, monomethylated and hydroxylated impurities (molecules with very similar chemical structures) having the three coelution in the reversed-phase LC method initially established. Taking into account the structure of the impurities of LAS 35917, separation by conventional liquid chromatography (LC) methods would be longer and tedious than separation by CE, which is an appropriate and versatile technique giving easier and quicker methods. Among the three potential impurities mentioned of LAS 35917, two are due to the synthesis route of this drug, and the third arises from degradation. These drug-related impurities were separated using a capillary of 56 cm of effective length and 50 microm I.D., a 60 mM tetraborate buffer, at pH 9.2, and a positive voltage of 20 kV. The optimised CE method was preliminary validated with regard to specificity, linearity, limits of detection and quantitation, repeatability and solution stability. The method allows the detection and quantitation of impurities above 0.04 and 0.08% level, respectively. All three related substances were separated, detected and quantified from their parent drug in the analysis of real samples of LAS 35917, stressed or not stressed, with this simple and fast CE method.     

Pressure‐assisted capillary electrophoresis frontal analysis for faster binding constant determination

Adding external pressure during the process of capillary electrophoresis usually add to the band broadening, especially if the pressure induced flow is significant. The resolution is normally negatively affected in pressure‐assisted capillary electrophoresis (PACE). Frontal analysis (FA), however, can potentially benefit from using an external pressure while avoiding the drawbacks in other modes of CE. In this work, possible impact from the external pressure was simulated by COMSOL Multiphysics®. Under a typical CE‐FA set‐up, it was found that the detected concentrations of analyte will not be significantly affected by an external pressure less than 5 psi. Besides, the measured ligand concentration in PACE‐FA was also not affected by common variables (molecular diffusion coefficient (10⁻⁸ to 10⁻¹¹ m²/s), capillary length etc). To provide an experimental proof, PACE‐FA is used to study the binding interactions between hydroxypropyl β‐cyclodextrin (HP‐β‐CD) and small ligand molecules. Taking the HP‐β‐CD /benzoate pair as an example, the binding constants determined by CE‐FA (18.3 ± 0.8 M⁻¹) and PACE‐FA (16.5 ± 0.5 M⁻¹) are found to be similar. Based on the experimental results, it is concluded that PACE‐FA can reduce the time of binding analysis while maintaining the accuracy of the measurements.     

Interinstrumental transfer of a fast short‐end injection capillary electrophoresis method: Application to the separation of niobium,tantalum, and their substituted ions

The interinstrumental transfer of a short‐end CE method was studied. A model separation of the hexameric forms of niobium, tantalum, and their substituted ions (Nb_6−xTa_x with 0 ≤ x  ≤ 6) was selected as test case. The method was first optimized on a Beckman instrument and in a second step transferred to an Agilent instrument. The transfer needed updated guidelines that tackled differences in effective capillary length, 8.5 (Agilent) versus 10 cm (Beckman), because of instrumental different capillary cartridges. Differences in effective length lead to migration time and separation efficiency inequalities, illustrated by a decrease in resolution between the substituted ions. The difference in effective length was overcome by adapting the lift offset parameter of the Agilent instrument. The lift offset default setting is 4 mm and by increasing this parameter both the inlet and outlet lifts are lowered and thus the detection window can be displaced and consequently the effective length was increased. The decrease in effective length difference and the effect on the separation efficiency was investigated and led finally to a restored separation of the substituted ions. The adaptation of the lift offset parameter during short‐end injection methods was added to earlier developed guidelines to facilitate interinstrumental method transfer of CE methods.     

A fast high throughput method for the determination of acidity constants by capillary electrophoresis. 3. Basic internal standards

A set of 25 monoprotic bases is proposed as internal standards for pK(a) determination by capillary electrophoresis. The pK(a) of the bases is determined and compared with available literature data. The capillary electrophoresis internal standard method offers numerous advantages over other typical methods for pK(a) determination, especially of analysis time and buffer preparation. However, it requires disposing of appropriate standards with reference pK(a) value. The set of bases established in this work together with the set of acids previously established provide a reference set of compounds with well-determined acidity constants that facilitate the process of selecting appropriate internal standards for fast pK(a) determination by capillary electrophoresis in high throughput screening of pharmaceutical drugs. In addition, the performance of the method when acidic internal standards are used for the determination of acidity constants of basic internal standards has also been tested. Although higher errors may be expected in this case, good agreement is observed between determined and literature values. These results indicate that in most cases structural similarity between the analyte and the internal standard might not be an essential requirement in the internal standard method.     

Development of a fast capillary electrophoresis method to determine inorganic cations in biodiesel samples

The aim of this study was to develop a fast capillary electrophoresis method for the determination of inorganic cations (Na⁺, K⁺, Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺) in biodiesel samples, using barium (Ba²⁺) as the internal standard. The running electrolyte was optimized through effective mobility curves in order to select the co-ion and Peakmaster software was used to determine electromigration dispersion and buffer capacity. The optimum background electrolyte was composed of 10 mmol L⁻¹ imidazole and 40 mmol L⁻¹ of acetic acid. Separation was conducted in a fused-silica capillary (32 cm total length and 23.5 cm effective length, 50 μm I.D.), with indirect UV detection at 214 nm. The migration time was only 36 s. In order to obtain the optimized conditions for extraction, a fractional factorial experimental design was used. The variables investigated were biodiesel mass, pH, extractant volume, agitation and sonication time. The optimum conditions were: biodiesel mass of 200 mg, extractant volume of 200 μL and agitation of 20 min. The method is characterized by good linearity in the concentration range of 0.5-20 mg kg⁻¹ (r > 0.999), limit of detection was equal to 0.3 mg kg⁻¹, inter-day precision was equal to 1.88% and recovery in the range of 88.0-120%. The developed method was successfully applied to the determination of cations in biodiesel samples.     

Development and validation of a capillary electrophoresis method for the determination of phenothiazines in human urine in the low nanogram per milliliter concentration range using field-amplified sample injection

A capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) method with ultraviolet-visible detection has been established and validated for the determination of five phenothiazines: thiazinamium methylsulfate, promazine hydrochloride, chlorpromazine hydrochloride, thioridazine hydrochloride, and promethazine hydrochloride in human urine. Optimum separation was obtained on a 64.5 cm x 75 microm bubble cell capillary using a buffer containing 150 mM tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane and 25% acetonitrile at pH 8.2, with temperature and voltage of 25 degrees C and 20 kV, respectively. Naphazoline hydrochloride was used as an internal standard. Field-amplified sample injection (FASI) has been applied to improve the sensitivity of the detection. Considering the influence of parameters affecting the on-line preconcentration (nature of preinjection plug, sample solvent composition, injection times, and injection voltage) and due to the significant interactions among them, in this paper we propose for the first time the application of a multivariate approach to carry out the study. The optimized conditions were as follows: preinjection plug of water for 7 s at 50 mbar, electrokinetic injection for 40 s at 6.2 kV, and 32 microm of H3PO4 in the sample solvent. Also, a solid-phase extraction (SPE) procedure is developed to obtain low detection limits and an adequate selectivity for urine samples. The combination of SPE and FASI-CZE-UV allows adequate linearities and recoveries, low detection limits (from 2 to 5 ng/mL), and satisfactory precisions (3.0-7.2% for an intermediate RSD %).     

Application of hot platinum microelectrodes for determination of flavonoids in flow injection analysis and capillary electrophoresis

The determination of quercetin and rutin by flow injection analysis (FIA) and capillary electrophoresis (CE) using electrochemical detection was described. These flavonoids were determined at normal (unheated) and hot platinum microelectrodes using cyclic voltammetry. When quercetin or rutin is reaching the platinum electrode, a change of the current in the region of the platinum oxide formation is observed. Integration of the current changes in this in this region creates analytical signals in the form of peaks. An increase of temperature to about 76 ?C in a small zone adjacent to the microelectrode causes an increase of the analytical signal by more than 6 times under FIA conditions. This method enables the use of hot microelectrodes as detectors in HPLC or CE. In CE the improvement of the analytical signal at hot microelectrodes is smaller than in FIA and increase only 1.3–3.4 times. Heated microelectrodes were used for analysis of the flavonoids in natural samples of the plant (extract of sea buckthorn) and a pharmaceutical preparation (Cerutin).     

Validation of a capillary zone electrophoresis method for the comparative determination of etoricoxib in pharmaceutical formulations

A CZE method was developed and validated for the analysis of etoricoxib in pharmaceutical dosage forms, using prilocaine as an internal standard. The CZE method was carried out on a fused-silica capillary (50 microm id, effective length 40 cm). The BGE consisted of 25 mM tris-phosphate solution at pH 2.5. The capillary temperature was maintained at 35 degrees C, the applied voltage was 25 kV, the injection was performed using the pressure mode at 50 mbar for 5 s, with detection at 234 nm using a photodiode array detector. The method was linear in the range of 2-150 microg/mL (r(2) = 0.9999). The specificity and stability-indicating capability were proven through the degradation studies and showing also that there was no interference of the excipients of the formulation. The accuracy was 99.49% with RSD of 0.66%. The limits of quantitation and detection were 2 and 0.58 microg/mL, respectively. Moreover, method validation demonstrated acceptable results for the precision, sensitivity, and robustness. The proposed method was successfully applied for the quantitative analysis of etoricoxib pharmaceutical formulations, and the results compared to the HPLC and LC-MS/MS methods, showing nonsignificant difference (p >0.05).     

Application of a capillary electrophoresis method for simultaneous determination of preservatives in pharmaceutical formulations

Preservatives are used to protect pharmaceutical formulations from microbial attack during the period of administration to the patient. Because of their biological activity, preservatives have to be identified and assayed according to the same rules as apply to active components. A number of methods for separation of preservatives are reported, to account for the heterogeneity of their chemical structures. A capillary electrophoretic method was devised for simple and simultaneous qualification and quantification of the preservatives most often included in pharmaceuticals, such as benzyl alcohol, parabens, phenol, m-cresol, chlorobutanol, thimerosal. After systematic method development, the electrophoretic conditions were defined as: 50 mM borate buffer pH 9.0 containing 20 mM SDS. Separations were performed at a temperature of 20 degrees C and with detection at 214 nm. Preservatives under examination can be analyzed within a 10 min run. The method was successfully validated and applied to the determination of preservatives in a number of pharmaceuticals. Results from the CE method were compared with those from reference methods.     

流动注射时间扫描荧光分析法测定青霉素V钾

研究了H2SO4颜色反应用于青霉素V钾(PMPP)荧光测定的新方法。PMPP为弱荧光物质,与浓H2SO4反应后荧光显著增强。结合流动注射进样技术,借助时间扫描荧光方式,提出了流动注射时间扫描荧光分析法测定PMPP的新方法。在最大激发236.0 nm、最大发射波长306.0 nm处,PMPP在3.6×10-5g/L~4.0×10-2g/L范围内与荧光强度呈良好的线性关系,相关系数为0.9999。方法检出限为1.0×10-5g/L,相对标准偏差为0.6%(n=11,ρ=1.0×10-3g/L),进样量为0.18 mL。方法已用于药物及尿样中PMPP的测定。