Enantiomeric separation of enzymatic hydrolysis products of dihydropyrimidinone methyl ester with cationic cyclodextrin by capillary electrophoresis

The achiral separation of dihydropyrimidinone (DHP) methyl ester and its corresponding carboxylic acid and the chiral separation of their respective enantiomers were achieved in a single analysis using capillary electrophoresis (CE) with quaternary ammonium-beta-cyclodextrin (QA-beta-CD) as a chiral buffer additive. Separation of the DHP methyl ester from the corresponding carboxylic acid was achieved because the acid was negatively charged at pH 8.3 of the running buffer and the ester is neutral. Upon the addition of QA-beta-CD, the enantiomers of the acid and ester were well resolved before and after the electroosmotic flow, respectively. In addition, the minor DHP methyl ester enantiomer (R isomer) was well separated from several impurities. This CE system was used to monitor the progress of a bioresolution reaction that utilizes an enzyme to convert the R isomer of the ester to its corresponding acid. The quantities of all four enantiomers can be determined using a single set of CE conditions. In addition, it is demonstrated that samples can be directly injected into the capillary without sample pretreatment due to the fact that the coating of the cationic CD on the capillary surface prevents adsorption of the positively charged enzyme. The effects of other experimental parameters such as type of CDs, concentration of CDs, pH, temperature, and the preconditioning of capillary were also studied.