Half-fraction and full factorial designs versus central composite design for retention modelling in reversed-phase ion-pair liquid chromatography.

In a previous paper (J. O. De Beer, C. V. Vandenbroucke and D. L. Massart, J. Pharm. Biomed. Anal., 12, (1994) 1379-1396) liquid chromatographic (LC) retention modelling of the cough-syrup compounds methyl para-hydroxybenzoate (MPHB) and propyl para-hydroxybenzoate (PPHB), phenylephrine hydrochloride (PE) and chlorphenamine maleate (CPM) was studied using a face-centred central composite design. It is examined whether smaller half-fractional and full factorial designs with fewer experiments tend to reliably predict retention times of the latter compounds as well. Simplified regression modelling, however, neglecting more first-order and interactive effects and disregarding pure second-order effects, has to be set up. These smaller designs finally satisfy the prediction of the retention of MPHB, PPHB and PE also. Retention prediction of CPM is much less accurate. CPM has a pKa value of 4.0, which is encompassed by the examined mobile phase pH limits 3.0 and 5.0. Since the largest retention shifts occur near the pKa value, retention prediction in this area becomes more complex. CPM retention modelling from a full factorial design is useful if the mobile phase pH is fixed at 5.0 for methanol as well as for acetonitrile as organic modifers. The full factorial design, applied with acetonitrile as organic modifer, enables the selection of suitable LC parameter combinations for fast and complete separation of the four compounds in cough-syrup analysis.

High performance liquid chromatography stability study of malonyl-coenzyme A, using statistical experimental designs.

Malonyl-CoA is a biochemically important compound, formed by an acetyl-coenzyme A carboxylase catalysed reaction. The stability of this short-chain coenzyme A derivative under various experimental conditions is discussed in this article. High-performance liquid chromatography was used for the analysis of the reaction mixture because of its excellent selectivity and sufficient sensitivity. Several variables were investigated as possible stability-influencing factors: pH, magnesium and buffer concentration, reaction temperature and time. The Plackett-Burman screening design was first used for selecting the most important variables, with which a central composite design was constructed. In this way, a response surface was obtained with the percentage remaining malonyl-CoA as a function of magnesium concentration, reaction temperature and time. The usefulness of this approach is demonstrated by obtaining kinetic data from the mathematical function and by the evaluation of the stopping of reaction procedure in the activity assay of acetyl-coenzyme A carboxylase.