Development and validation of a capillary electrophoresis method with capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection (CE-C(4) D) for the analysis of amikacin and its related substances.

Amikacin is a semisynthetic aminoglycoside antibiotic derived from kanamycin A that lacks a strong UV absorbing chromophore or fluorophore. Due to the physicochemical properties of amikacin and its related substances, CE in combination with capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection (CE-C(4) D) was chosen. The optimized separation method uses a BGE composed of 20 mM MES adjusted to pH 6.6 by l-histidine and 0.3 mM CTAB that was added as flow modifier in a concentration below the CMC. Ammonium acetate 20 mg.L(-1) was used as internal standard. 30 kV was applied in reverse polarity on a fused silica capillary (73/48 cm; 75 µm id). The optimized separation was obtained in less than 6 min with good linearity (R(2) = 0.9996) for amikacin base. It shows a good precision expressed as RSD on relative peak areas equal to 0.1 and 0.7% for intraday and interday, respectively. The LOD and LOQ are 0.5 mg.L(-1) and 1.7 mg.L(-1) , respectively.

Identification of the oxidation products of cysteamine and cystamine by CE-MS interfaced by a noncommercial electrospray ionization source.

Sodium cysteamine phosphate is a prodrug derivative of cysteamine that can be used in cystinosis treatment. Although titrimetric assays are very well established and precise, iodimetric determination of sodium cysteamine phosphate requires considerably more carefulness and time from the analyst than usual. The possibility to assess sodium cysteamine phosphate by CE was evaluated by means of the quantification of its oxidation product, cystamine, which is a more suitable substance to be used as primary standard than sodium cysteamine phosphate. Apparently, this approach should be straightforward, but systematic differences between the results obtained with CE and titrimetric assays were noticed. MS and CE-MS were employed to aid in the investigation of the possible causes of imprecision of the sodium cysteamine phosphate titration and CE determination. For this purpose, a simple and inexpensive ESI source was constructed. It was observed that cystamine is not the final product of the cysteamine and/or sodium cysteamine phosphate iodine-oxidation and other species besides cystamine may be formed depending on the reaction conditions, which explains the difficulties observed in the sodium cysteamine phosphate quantification.

Optimization of capillary electrophoresis method with contactless conductivity detection for the analysis of tobramycin and its related substances.

A method was validated and optimized to determine tobramycin (TOB) and its related substances. TOB is an aminoglycoside antibiotic which lacks a strong UV absorbing chromophore or fluorophore. Due to the physicochemical properties of TOB, capillary electrophoresis (CE) in combination with Capacitively Coupled Contactless Conductivity Detection (C(4)D) was chosen. The optimized separation method uses a background electrolyte (BGE) composed of 25 mM morpholinoethane-sulphonic acid (MES) adjusted to pH 6.4 by L-histidine (l-His). 0.3 mM cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) was added as electroosmotic flow modifier in a concentration below the critical micellar concentration (CMC). Ammonium acetate 50 mg L(-1) was used as internal standard (IS). 30 kV was applied in reverse polarity (cathode at the injection capillary end) on a fused silica capillary (65/43 cm; 75 µm id). The optimized separation was obtained in less than 7 min with good linearity (R(2)=0.9995) for tobramycin. It shows a good precision expressed as RSD on relative peak areas equal to 0.2% and 0.7% for intraday and interday respectively. The LOD and LOQ are 0.4 and 1.3 mg L(-1) corresponding to 9 pg and 31 pg respectively.

Method development and validation for trifluoroacetic acid determination by capillary electrophoresis in combination with capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection (CE-C4D).

A method was developed to determine traces of trifluoroacetic acid as impurity in synthetic or semi-synthetic drugs as antibiotics, macropeptides, etc. Capillary electrophoresis in combination with capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection (CE-C(4)D) was used due to lack of UV absorbance property of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA). The optimized method took less than 1 min with good linearity (R(2)=0.9995) for trifluoroacetic acid concentration from 2 to 100 ppm. It also has a good repeatability expressed by the relative standard deviation (% RSD) which is 1.2 and 2.1% for intraday and interday precision, respectively, at 50 ppm TFA, and good sensitivity with 0.34 ppm, 1.2 ppm LOD and LOQ, respectively. In addition, the content of TFA in synthetic drug, was determined using the validated method which gave good linearity (R(2)=0.9996) for trifluoroacetic acid spiked into drug in a concentration range of 2-80 ppm, with good intraday repeatability of 2.0%. The analysis is performed in a background electrolyte composed of 20mM morpholinoethane-sulfonic acid (Mes) and 20mM L-histidine (L-His) pH 6.1. Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) was added as flow modifier in a concentration (0.2mM) lower than the critical micellar concentration. Ammonium formate 6 ppm was used as internal standard. The applied voltage was 30 kV in reverse polarity. A fused silica capillary with 75 µm internal diameter and total length 47 cm (31 cm to C(4)D detector and 37 cm to DAD detector) was used.

Micellar electrokinetic chromatography method development for determination of impurities in ritonavir.

Ritonavir is a synthetic peptidomimetic human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) protease inhibitor employed in the treatment of AIDS since 1996. Synthetic precursors are potential impurities in the final product. In the present work a micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) method for the separation of Ritonavir from three available synthetic precursors was developed. The optimized separation is performed in a background electrolyte composed of sodium tetraborate (pH 9.6; 15mM) containing sodium dodecylsulfate (30mM) and acetonitrile (18%, v/v). Mass spectrometry was used to confirm the identity of the tested substances. Good repeatability was observed for migration time (RSD about 0.4%) and peak area (RSD about 0.8%). The limits of detection (LOD) obtained allow the determination of two of the impurities at levels as low as 0.005% m/m, and one at a level of 0.3% m/m.