Enantiomeric purity control of <Emphasis Type="Italic">R</Emphasis>-cinacalcet in pharmaceutical product by capillary electrophoresis

The capillary zone electrophoresis method was developed for the chiral separation of R,S-cinacalcet. Cyclodextrins with different substituents were tested in both acidic and alkaline background electrolytes. The non-ionic cyclodextrin, 2-hydroxypropyl-γ-cyclodextrin, was selected as the best chiral selector. The separation was performed using a positive voltage in a phosphate buffer at pH 2.5. The analytes studied were separated within 12 min. The proposed method was applied to the analysis of tablets containing R-cinalcalcet as the active substance. The enantiopurity of R-cinacalcet in the tablets studied was confirmed. Subsequently, the analysis of tablets spiked with S-cinacalcet (chiral impurity) was also performed. The method here presented makes possible the determination of 0.1 % of S-cinacalcet in tablets. The analytical characteristics of the method, such as linearity, recovery and RSD values of the peak area and the migration time, were evaluated. The inter-day RSD values of the peak area and the migration time were lower than 3.71 % and 1.3 %, respectively.     

Determination of quinine in beverages by online coupling capillary isotachophoresis to capillary zone electrophoresis with UV spectrophotometric detection

The present study illustrates the possibilities of capillary isotachophoresis (CITP) online coupled with capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) and hyphenated with fiber-based spectrophotometric diode array detection (DAD) for the direct, highly reliable, and ultrasensitive determination of quinine (QUI) in real multicomponent ionic matrices (beverages). Here, the CITP provided an effective online sample pretreatment (preseparation and preconcentration) prior to the CZE separation. Due to the CITP sample preconcentration, a simple UV-visible absorbance spectrophotometric detection was sufficient for obtaining very low concentration limits of detection (~2.3 ng/mL). Enhanced separation selectivity due to the combination of different separation mechanisms (CITP vs. CZE) enabled to obtain a pure analyte zone, suitable for its detection and quantitation in the directly injected real samples. The spectrophotometric DAD, unlike single wavelength UV detection, enabled to characterize the purity (i.e. spectral homogeneity) of the analyte zone and preliminary data indicate structurally related compounds via characteristic spectra recorded in the interval of 200-600 nm. The proposed CITP-CZE-DAD method was characterized by favorable performance parameters (sensitivity, linearity, precision, recovery, accuracy, robustness, and selectivity) and successfully applied to the control of QUI and potential QUI impurities in commercial beverages. This method is proposed as a routine automatized method for the highly reliable quality food control.     

A Systematic Study of Coumarin–Tetrazine Light-Up Probes for Bioorthogonal Fluorescence Imaging

Fluorescent probes that light-up upon reaction with complementary bioorthogonal reagents are superior tools for no-wash fluorogenic bioimaging applications. In this work, a thorough study is presented on a set of seventeen structurally diverse coumarin–tetrazine probes that produce fluorescent dyes with exceptional turn-on ratios when reacted with trans-cyclooctene (TCO) and bicyclononyne (BCN) dienophiles. In general, formation of the fully aromatic pyridazine-containing dyes resulting from the reaction with BCN was found superior in terms of fluorogenicity. However, evaluation of the probes in cellular imaging experiments revealed that other factors, such as reaction kinetics and good cell permeability, prevail over the fluorescence turn-on properties. The best compound identified in this study showed excellent performance in live cell-labeling experiments and enabled no-wash fluorogenic imaging on a timescale of seconds.     

New materials with high π conjugation by reaction of 2-oxazoline containing phenols with polyamidines and inorganic base

The non-covalent interactions between 2-oxazoline containing phenols and an aliphatic polyamidines as well as an inorganic base were studied. The reaction of a weak acid with a strong base results in the formation of the deprotonated species and subsequently in the formation of a new electronic structure. A bathochromic shift of the wavelength of the absorption maxima of the chromophores bounded to polyamidine was observed. Depending on the structure of the chromophore, the shift of the absorption maxima is 40-100 nm. The changes in photochemical behavior can be explained by the higher portion of quinoid structures in the conjugated π-system. The degree of deprotonation is dependent on the molar ratio of the chromophore and the polymeric base. Analogous results were obtained with an inorganic base.     

X‐Treme beamline at SLS: X‐ray magnetic circular and linear dichroism at high field and low temperature

X‐Treme is a soft X‐ray beamline recently built in the Swiss Light Source at the Paul Scherrer Institut in collaboration with École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. The beamline is dedicated to polarization‐dependent X‐ray absorption spectroscopy at high magnetic fields and low temperature. The source is an elliptically polarizing undulator. The end‐station has a superconducting 7 T–2 T vector magnet, with sample temperature down to 2 K and is equipped with an in situ sample preparation system for surface science. The beamline commissioning measurements, which show a resolving power of 8000 and a maximum flux at the sample of 4.7 × 10¹² photons s^?1, are presented. Scientific examples showing X‐ray magnetic circular and X‐ray magnetic linear dichroism measurements are also presented.     

Sorption of iron(III) and iron(II) from acidic chloride solutions by polyether and polyester type polyurethane foams

Summary Iron(III) is sorbed by polyether type open-cell polyurethane foams from HCl solutions of 4 mol/l or higher. The capacity of the foams is around 50 mg·l^–1. The iron (III) sorbed can be eluted from the foam with 0.01 mol/l HCl or distilled water. An optimization of the sorption conditions showed that the process can be used for analytical applications. The polyurethane foam sorbents examined did not sorb iron(II). The mechanism of sorption by polyether foams seems to follow a mechanism similar to that of the extraction of iron(III) by etheric solvents.