First inter-laboratory study of a Supercritical Fluid Chromatography method for the determination of pharmaceutical impurities.

Supercritical Fluid Chromatography (SFC) has known a strong regain of interest for the last 10 years, especially in the field of pharmaceutical analysis. Besides the development and validation of the SFC method in one individual laboratory, it is also important to demonstrate its applicability and transferability to various laboratories around the world. Therefore, an inter-laboratory study was conducted and published for the first time in SFC, to assess method reproducibility, and evaluate whether this chromatographic technique could become a reference method for quality control (QC) laboratories. This study involved 19 participating laboratories from 4 continents and 9 different countries. It included 5 academic groups, 3 demonstration laboratories at analytical instrument companies, 10 pharmaceutical companies and 1 food company. In the initial analysis of the study results, consistencies within- and between-laboratories were deeply examined. In the subsequent analysis, the method reproducibility was estimated taking into account variances in replicates, between-days and between-laboratories. The results obtained were compared with the literature values for liquid chromatography (LC) in the context of impurities determination. Repeatability and reproducibility variances were found to be similar or better than those described for LC methods, and highlighted the adequacy of the SFC method for QC analyses. The results demonstrated the excellent and robust quantitative performance of SFC. Consequently, this complementary technique is recognized on equal merit to other chromatographic techniques.

Preparation and evaluation of L- and D-5-[18F]fluorotryptophan as PET imaging probes for indoleamine and tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenases.

Indoleamine and tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenases (IDO1 and TDO2) are pyrrolases catalyzing the oxidative cleavage of the 2,3-double bond of L-tryptophan in kynurenine pathway. In the tumor microenvironment, their increased activity prevents normal immune function, i.e. tumor cell recognition and elimination by cytotoxic T-cells. Consequently, inhibition of the kynurenine pathway may enhance the activity of cancer immunotherapeutics by reversing immune dysfunction. We sought to investigate the properties of radiolabeled 5-[18F]fluorotryptophan with respect to its ability for measuring IDO1 and TDO2 activity by positron emission tomography (PET). RESULTS: L-5-[18F]fluorotryptophan and D-5-[18F]fluorotryptophan were synthesized by Cu(I) catalyzed [18F]fluorodeboronylation of Boc/tBu protected precursors in moderate yields (1.5±0.6%) sufficient for pre-clinical studies. The specific activity of the product was 407-740GBq/µmol, radiochemical purity >99% and enantiomeric excess 90-99%. Enzymatic assay confirmed that L-5-fluorotryptophan is an IDO1 and TDO2 substrate whereas the D-isomer is not. In-vitro cell uptake experiments using CT26 cells with doxycycline-induced overexpression of human-IDO1 and human-TDO2 revealed an elevated cell uptake of L-5-[18F]fluorotryptophan upon induction of IDO1 or TDO2 enzymes compared to baseline; however, the uptake was observed only in the presence of low L-tryptophan levels in media. PET imaging experiments performed using tumor bearing mouse models expressing IDO1 at various levels (CT26, CT26-hIDO1, 17082A, 17095A) showed tumor uptake of the tracer elevated up to 8%ID/g; however, the observed tumor uptake could not be attributed to IDO1 activity in the tumor tissue. The metabolism of L- and D- isomers was markedly different in vivo, the D-isomer was excreted by a combination of hepatobiliary and renal routes, the L-isomer underwent extensive metabolism to [18F]fluoride. CONCLUSION: The observed in vivo tumor uptake of the tracer could not be attributed to IDO1 or TDO2 enzyme activity in the tumor, presumably due to competition with endogenous tryptophan as well as rapid tracer metabolism.

The evaluation of 25 chiral stationary phases and the utilization of sub-2.0µm coated polysaccharide chiral stationary phases via supercritical fluid chromatography.

A rapid screening method to identify the best conditions for chiral separations is described. We analyzed a representative set of 80 racemic compounds against 25 different chiral stationary phases with three different mobile phases to identify the combination of columns and mobile phases that will separate the most compounds on the initial screen. While the OD separated the largest number of compounds, we found the best combination of six columns to be the AD, AS, AY, CC4, ID and Whelk-O1. The second team included the CCC, Cellulose-1, Cellulose-3 or OJ, IA, IE and IF. All 80 compounds were separated with a resolution range of 0.65-15.36. Screening the covalently bonded phases provided separation for 79 of the 80 compounds. We also found ethanol (0.1% NH4OH) separated more compounds than methanol (0.1% NH4OH) or isopropanol (0.1% NH4OH). As part of this study, we also compared the effectiveness of stationary phases that have the same chiral selector. Finally, we demonstrated the effectiveness of using a fast, 1.5-min screening method that utilizes a 1.7µm coated polysaccharide chiral stationary phase.

The use of ammonium hydroxide as an additive in supercritical fluid chromatography for achiral and chiral separations and purifications of small, basic medicinal molecules.

This study describes using 0.1% of a 28-30% ammonium hydroxide solution as an additive to alcohol modifiers in SFC to improve chromatographic peak shapes for basic molecules. Ammonium hydroxide's high volatility leaves no residual additive in the purified sample unlike classical additives in preparative chromatography such as diethylamine and triethylamine. We demonstrate that the silica support is stable despite having ammonium hydroxide in the modifier by running a durability study for over 350 h (105 L of solvent, 105,000 column volumes) on an analytical Chiralcel OJ column and a second study for 30 h (7.2 L, 14,400 column volumes) on an analytical Lux Cellulose-1 column. The peak shape of small, basic molecules is greatly improved with the use of ammonium hydroxide and this improvement is very similar to those having 0.1% diethylamine as a mobile phase additive. Electrospray ionization is also enhanced with the presence of ammonium hydroxide compared with that of diethylamine. We have found that the age of the 28-30% bottle of ammonium hydroxide solution can have significant effects on the chromatography and we describe how this can be overcome. Finally, we analyzed 23 racemic and basic compounds on six different chiral stationary phases and found there to be very little chiral selectivity difference between ammonium hydroxide and diethylamine, triethylamine, ethanolamine and isopropylamine.

A high throughput approach to purifying chiral molecules using 3µm analytical chiral stationary phases via supercritical fluid chromatography.

In this study we describe a fast 2.5 min gradient chiral screening method that utilizes 3 µm particles CSPs. An empirical approach to scale-up from the 2.5 min gradient method to an isocratic preparative method is described. We also evaluate the use of 5 µm preparative columns that are 150 mm in length versus the industry standard of 250 mm. Finally, we evaluate eleven different CSPs against 46 compounds, 23 commercially available and 23 internal compounds from a variety of projects. All 46 compounds were separated using the 2.5 min gradient method. Assuming an R(s) of 1.0 or greater, the Chiralpak AD column from Chiral Technologies proved most useful, followed by the Cellulose-1 from Phenomenex. The Cellulose-4, a novel stationary phase from Phenomenex, provided the third most separations of the eleven columns tested. For the 46 compounds tested, the Chiralcel OJ column from Chiral Technologies outperformed Phenomenex's version, the Lux Cellulose-3.

CDK2/cyclinA inhibitors: targeting the cyclinA recruitment site with small molecules derived from peptide leads.

The syntheses of potent small molecule inhibitors of the CDK2/cyclinA recruitment site are described. Structure-activity trends of nanomolar octapeptides were examined through amino-acid substitution and truncation of the sequence resulting in the identification of a smaller, albeit significantly less potent, tetrapeptide lead. These losses in affinity were recovered by side-chain optimization and by rigidification of the peptide backbone using a combination of solid-phase parallel synthesis and structure-based design. Finally, two guanidine functionalities were replaced to improve drug-like properties, resulting in neutral small molecules equal in activity to that of the peptide lead.