Teicoplanin-Based Enantiomeric Separations in CZE Using a Partial Filling Technique

Baseline separation of the enantiomers of a number of negatively charged amino and mandelic acid derivatives was achieved in less than 10 min by capillary electrophoresis in a polyacrylamide coated capillary, using the “partial filling method” (PFM) with submillimolar concentration of Teicoplanin (TE) as the chiral selector. The influence of the charge and concentration of TE, electrolyte solution composition and pH, on the enantioresolution was examined. Further proofs were brought to corroborate the hypothesis that the enantiorecognition takes place at the D-Ala-D-Ala binding site, whose blockade is responsible for the antibacterial activity of glycopeptide antibiotics. While the dependence of the chiral recognition capabilities of TE on electrolyte solution composition and pH could limit its applicability, improved sensitivity, reduction of TE wall adsorption, resulting in a good efficiency, and high cost reduction, due to the very small amount of chiral selector required, were shown as advantages of the PFM adopted in this study.