Rapid analysis of neomycin in cochlear perilymph of guinea pigs using disposable SPE cartridges and high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

Irreversible hearing loss induced by aminoglycoside in human through local or systemic administration route negatively impacts quality of life. The aim of this work was to develop and validate an analytical method suitable for the detection and quantification of neomycin in cochlear perilymph of guinea pig after local application. The SupelMIP SPE column was used for the pre-treatment of matrix. Chromatographic separation was conducted by a reversed phase ODS column (100 × 2.1 mm, 3 µm) at 40 °C in gradient mode with 0.2‰ (v/v) HFBA in water and 0.2‰ (v/v) HFBA in acetonitrile as mobile phase, at a flow rate of 0.30 mL/min, with retention time of 3.50 and 3.62 min for internal standard tobramycin and analyte neomycin, respectively. The MS was performed with positive ionization mode, with data acquisition in Multi Reaction Monitor (MRM) mode. This method was proved to be specific, accurate (97.1-115% of nominal values) and precise (CV% < 15%). Calibration curves for matrix matched standard of neomycin ranged from 1.25 to 200 µg/mL, with LOD and LLOQ of 0.625 and 1.25 µg/mL in blank matrix. The matrix effect was corrected to (-0.1) - 1.33 by adding internal standard. The relative SPE recovery values were ≥98.9% in low, medium and high QC samples. Neomycin in matrix proved to be stable under room temperature - and -20 °C, or under three freeze-thawing cycles, or under processing as well. Finally, the proposed method was successfully applied to a toxicokinetics study of neomycin in perilymph after round window membrane (RWM) administration, which was in accordance with threshold shift of auditory brainstem response (ABR) test related to hearing loss.

Colorimetric Microtiter Plate Assay of Polycationic Aminoglycoside Antibiotics in Culture Broth Using Amaranth.

We present a colorimetric method for the detection of aminoglycoside antibiotics such as neomycin (NEO) using a reddish anionic dye, amaranth (AR3-). Under acidic conditions, at which NEO exists in fully protonated form (NEOH6+), the AR3- anion associates with the NEOH6+ cation to form a precipitate, NEOH(AR)2. The precipitate was soluble in a buffer solution of pH 8.5, yielding a reddish solution with an absorption maximum at around 520 nm. Tobramycin and gentamycin, which exist as pentavalent cations under acidic conditions, gave almost the same results. On the other hand, kanamycin, amikacin and streptomycin, which would exist as tri- and tetravalent cations, were not precipitated. Thus, the AR3- anion could be considered to be an analytical reagent for specific aminoglycosides with polycationic functionality. However, since the precipitation reaction was considerably affected by other anions, a separation method using the tetraphenylborate anion was employed as a pretreatment. The separation method involves precipitating the polycationic aminoglycosides with the tetraphenylborate anion, washing the precipitate with acetonitrile, and re-precipitating the aminoglycosides as hydrochloride salts. Thus, the present method was applied to a microtiter plate assay of the products in an NEO-producing culture broth.

Urea-formaldehyde monolithic column for hydrophilic in-tube solid-phase microextraction of aminoglycosides.

A novel urea-formaldehyde (UF) monolithic column has been developed and exploited as a sorbent for hydrophilic in-tube solid-phase microextraction (in-tube SPME) of aminoglycosides (AGs). Because of the innate hydrophilicity, UF monolith showed high extraction efficiency towards these hydrophilic analytes. The adsorption capacities for target compounds dissolved in water/ACN (1:1, v/v) were in the range of 5.18-7.36µg/cm. Due to the lack of a chromophore, evaporative light scattering detector (ELSD) was selected as the detector for AGs, and coupled with the online in-tube SPME-HPLC system. Several factors of the online system, such as trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) and ACN percentage in the sampling solution, ionic strength in the sample solution, elution volume, sampling and elution flow rate, were optimized with respect to the extraction efficiencies. Under the optimized conditions, the limits of detection (LODs) of streptomycin, tobramycin and neomycin were discovered in the range of 3.0-5.2µg/kg. The recoveries were ranged from 82.1 to 96.7% with relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 2.3-5.1% (n=4) at spiking levels of 50, 200 and 500µg/kg, respectively. The excellent applicability of the UF monolithic column was examined by the determination of streptomycin in practical tilapia samples, which showed the potential advantages for the analysis of polar analytes in complicated samples.

Synthesis, separation, and characterization of amphiphilic sulfated oligosaccharides enabled by reversed-phase ion pairing LC and LC-MS methods.

Synthesis of amphiphilic oligosaccharides is problematic because traditional methods for separating and purifying oligosaccharides, including sulfated oligosaccharides, are generally not applicable to working with amphiphilic sugars. We report here RPIP-LC and LC-MS methods that enable the synthesis, separation, and characterization of amphiphilic N-arylacyl O-sulfonated aminoglycosides, which are being pursued as small-molecule glycosaminoglycan mimics. The methods described in this work for separating and characterizing these amphiphilic saccharides are further applied to a number of uses: monitoring the progression of sulfonation reactions with analytical RP-HPLC, characterizing sulfate content for individual molecules with ESI-MS, determining the degree of sulfation for products having mixed degrees of sulfation with HPLC and LC-MS, and purifying products with benchtop C18 column chromatography. We believe that the methods described here will be broadly applicable to enabling the synthesis, separation, and characterization of amphiphilic, sulfated, and phosphorylated oligosaccharides and other types of molecules substituted to varying degrees with both anionic and hydrophobic groups.

Identification of tobramycin impurities for quality control process monitoring using high-performance anion-exchange chromatography with integrated pulsed amperometric detection.

Commercial-scale fermentation for tobramycin manufacture is carried out with Streptomyces tenebrarius. Impurity profiling during various phases of pharmaceutical production is important for evaluating the effectiveness of a processing step and meeting regulatory requirements. High-performance anion-exchange (HPAE) chromatography with integrated pulsed amperometric detection (HPAE-IPAD) is a highly sensitive method used to assay tobramycin and to assess purity, but no prior publications demonstrated the capability of this technique to monitor purity at various stages of production at either the typical concentrations or in the typical matrices of a manufacturing process. In addition, the identities of the impurity peaks observed in commercial sources of tobramycin when assayed by using HPAE-IPAD are mainly unknown. Regulatory agencies generally require these impurities to be characterized when found above certain limits, and when present at higher levels require toxicological studies. In this paper, we analyze tobramycin samples using HPAE-IPAD at different stages of production and show the impurity profile and concentration changes through the manufacturing process. We successfully identified nearly all the impurity peaks found in commercially available tobramycin, based on known degradation pathways deduced from extreme pH forced degradation studies, which we experimentally reproduced, and based on previously known related substances found in S. tenebrarius fermentation broth. In crude and final tobramycin products, we identified the peaks for neamine, kanamycin B, nebramine, kanosamine, 2-deoxystreptamine. We tentatively identified deoxystreptamine-kanosaminide in crude and final products, and kanamycin A, carbamoyl-kanamycin B and carbamoyl-tobramycin in down stream process intermediates of a S. tenebrarius fermentation culture. Results presented in this paper support the effective use of the HPAE-IPAD method for in-process impurity profiling of tobramycin, and as a stability-indicating technique after product purification.

Simultaneous identification and quantitative determination of neomycin sulfate, polymixin B sulfate, zinc bacytracin and methyl and propyl hydroxybenzoates in ophthalmic ointment by TLC.

A thin layer chromatographic-densitometric method for identification and quantitation of neomycin sulfate, polymixin B sulfate, zinc bacytracin and auxiliary substances (methyl and propyl hydroxybenzoates) in ophthalmic ointment was developed. To separate these constituents the silica gel coated TLC plates and two mobile phases were used. The suitable mobile phases were: methanol-n-butanol-ammonia 25%-chloroform (14:4:9:12, v/v/v/v) for determination of antibiotics and n-pentane-glacial acetic acid (66:9, v/v) for methyl and propyl hydroxybenzoates. The antibiotic chromatograms were detected by using ninhydrin ethanol solution, while densitometric measurements were made at lambda = 550 nm. Hydroxybenzoates were identified by UV measurements at lambda = 260 nm. The constituents under consideration were well separated at sufficient detection level. The recovery for all constituents ranged from 98.08% to 104.95%.

Confirmation of gentamicin and neomycin in milk by weak cation-exchange extraction and electrospray ionization/ion trap tandem mass spectrometry.

A new procedure for the confirmation of two aminoglycoside antibiotics in milk was developed and validated. This work is among the early applications of ion trap mass spectrometry for regulatory methodology, and it incorporates a novel weak cation-exchange extraction. The procedure was validated for the confirmation of both gentamicin and neomycin at 30 ng ml(-1) and above. Milk is first treated with acid and centrifuged. The supernate, excluding the fat layer, is buffered with sodium citrate to neutral pH. The extract is applied to a weak cation-exchange solid-phase extraction column. Aminoglycosides are eluted with acidified methanol. Following separation by ion-pair liquid chromatography, analytes are ionized with an electrospray interface. Protonated molecular ions are selectively stored in an ion trap mass spectrometer, then collisionally dissociated to yield unique product ion spectra. Confirmation is based on matching spectral responses between samples and comparison standards consisting of a bona fide standard spiked into control extracts. Method performance was demonstrated with replicate samples of control milk, fortified milk, and milk containing incurred residues of each compound.

Reducing the effect of chemiluminescence on the efficiency of extracting 14C-neomycin from fortified kidney tissue as measured by a liquid scintillation system.

Extraction efficiency was monitored, using 14C-neomycin and liquid scintillation counting, during development of a procedure to isolate neomycin from fortified kidney tissue. Chemiluminescence caused 119% false positive recovery at 0.16 ppm neomycin (1260 disintegrations/min (dpm) activity). However, the contribution of chemiluminescence to false positive recovery was negligible above 8 ppm neomycin (63,000 dpm activity). To reduce chemiluminescence, fortified kidney tissue was extracted with saline by homogenization, mixed with Protosol at 70 degrees C for 1 h, cooled 5 min at 4 degrees C and neutralized with acetic acid. The digest was mixed with Aquasol and incubated 1 h at 47 degrees C, followed by equilibration for 2 h in the counter. The procedure allows reliable monitoring of extraction efficiency down to about 407 dpm activity from 14C-neomycin (0.05 ppm) with maximum chemiluminescence of about 4%.

The role of the pseudo-disaccharide neamine as an intermediate in the biosynthesis of neomycin.

By using wild-type and deoxystreptamine-negative mutants of Streptomyces fradiae grown in media containing [6(-3)H]glucose or [U-14C]glucose, and by subsequent hydrolysis of the labelled neomycin produced, neamines labelled with 3H in both rings I and II, but with 14C in ring I only, were prepared. A mixture of these two forms of neamine was converted by deoxystreptamine-negative Streptomyces rimosus forma paromomycinus into neomycin (not paromomycin) with a 30% yield. The3H: 14C ratio in this neomycin was the same as the measured in neamine produced by hydrolysis of the neomycin, and in unused neamine reisolated from the incubation medium. The 3H:14C ratio in the neomycin was not affected by the presence of unlabelled deoxystreptamine during the incubation. The radioactivity in the neomycin was associated with rings I and II only. It is concluded that the added neamine is incorporated into antibiotic intact, without initial hydrolysis, and that the probable first step in the subunit assembly of neomycin is the formation of neamine.