Various instrumental approaches for determination of organic acids in wines.

Biosensors based on lactate oxidase, sarcosine oxidase and mixture of fumarase and sarcosine oxidase were used for monitoring of organic acids in wine samples. Additionally, tartaric acid was determined by modified colorimetric method based on formation of the vanadate-tartrate complex. The above mentioned methods were used for the analysis of 31 wine samples and obtained data were compared with the results from capillary electrophoresis as a basic standard method. This comparison showed a certain degree of correlation between biosensors and capillary electrophoresis. The provided information pointed to the potential uses of biosensors in the field of winemaking.

New capillary electrophoretic method for on-line screenings of drug metabolism mediated by cytochrome P450 enzymes.

A new method for the determination of kinetic and inhibition parameters of cytochromes P450 reactions by means of on-line CE was developed. It is based on transverse diffusion of laminar flow profiles methodology introduced by Krylov et al. that injection procedure was modified. The solutions of an enzyme and its substrates are injected by hydrodynamic pressure as a series of repeated consecutive plugs. Proposed injection of three plugs of enzyme surrounded with plugs of substrates represents a certain trade-off to obtain the reaction mixture with the satisfying homogeneity by the short-injection procedure as possible. Mathematical modeling confirmed the assumption of a consistent distribution of reactants in the final reaction mixture. Kinetic and inhibition studies of cytochrome P450 isoform 2C9's reaction with diclofenac as a probe substrate and sulfaphenazole as a probe inhibitor were conducted in order to prove the practical applicability of the proposed method for on-line screenings of drug metabolism mediated by cytochrome P450 enzymes. As a result, an apparent Michaelis constant of 2.66 ± 0.18 µM, apparent maximum reaction velocity of 7.91 ± 0.22 nmol min(-1) nmol(-1) , Hill coefficient of 1.59 ± 0.16, half maximal inhibitory concentration of 0.94 ± 0.04 µM and apparent inhibition constant of 0.39 ± 0.07 µM were determined. All these values are in agreement with literature data obtained using different techniques. In addition, less than 30 nL of cytochrome P450 2C9 solution was consumed per analysis in the kinetic and inhibition studies using this method.

On-line drug metabolites generation and their subsequent target analysis by capillary zone electrophoresis with UV-absorption detection.

This study presents the in-capillary enzymatic biotransformation of dextromethorphan, an antitusive drug and opioid receptor antagonist, and subsequent electrophoretic separation of its products. The study includes the optimization of separation parameters to fulfill the requirements of an online microreaction. The analyses were performed in a bare fused-silica capillary using 100 mM sodium tetraborate (pH 10.0) mixed with linear polyacrylamide (20%, v/v) and 2-propanol (10%, v/v). This BGE was suitable for monitoring both off-line and in-capillary incubations. The partial filling technique enabled the enzymatic reaction to be carried out in its optimal environment (20 mM sodium phosphate, pH 7.4). Finally, in-capillary microreaction in the presence of cytochrome P450 3A4 gave satisfactory outcomes.

Integration of on-line protein digestion by trypsin in CZE by means of electrophoretically mediated microanalysis.

In this work, electrophoretically mediated microanalysis (EMMA) was applied to the in-capillary tryptic digestion of proteins for proteomic purposes. Compared with classical in-solution tryptic digestion or the trypsin reactor commonly used for this purpose, the EMMA-based method is rapid, can be automated and requires only a small amount of trypsin preparation. Moreover, the protein digestion and the analysis of the resulting peptides are integrated into one procedure. A combination of the EMMA methodology with a partial filling technique was used in this study, since the pH optimum of the trypsin reaction differs strongly from the best pH for the CZE separation of peptides. In this set-up, a part of the capillary is filled with the best buffer for the tryptic digestion (50 mM Tris-HCl buffer, pH 8.5) whereas the rest of the capillary is filled with the BGE optimal for peptide separation (0.1 M phosphate buffer, pH 2.5). As the proteins differ in their isoelectric points, a sandwich type of injection was used. The analysed protein is thus injected between two trypsin zones, which ensures their mixing and digestion. The analysis of one protein comprising both the digestion and the peptide separation is then completed in 1 h using a commercial instrument for CE with no modifications.

Development of electrophoretically mediated microanalysis method for the kinetics study of flavin-containing monooxygenase in a partially filled capillary.

An electrophoretically mediated microanalysis method with a partial filling technique was developed for flavin-containing monooxygenase, form 3 (FMO3). The in-line enzymatic reaction was performed in 100 mM phosphate reaction buffer (pH 7.4) whereas 150 mM phosphate buffer (pH 3.3) was used as a background electrolyte. A long plug of cofactor NADPH dissolved in reaction buffer was hydrodynamically injected into a fused-silica capillary, followed by enzyme and substrate solution. The reaction was initiated at 37 degrees C in the thermostated part of the cartridge by the application of 9 kV for 0.9 min. The voltage was turned off to increase the product amount (zero-potential amplification) and again turned on at a constant voltage of 10 kV to elute all the components. Direct detection was performed at 191 nm. The developed electrophoretically mediated microanalysis method was applied for the kinetics study of FMO3 using clozapine as a substrate probe. A Michaelis-Menten constant (K(m)) of 410.3 microM was estimated from the corrected peak area of the product, clozapine N-oxide. The calculated value of the maximum reaction velocity (V(max)) was found to be 1.86 nmol/nmol enzyme/min. The acquired FMO3 kinetic parameters are in accordance with the published literature data.

Miniaturized liquid core waveguide-based fluorimetric detection cell for capillary separation methods: application in CE of amino acids.

A miniaturized post-column fluorimetric detection cell for capillary separation methods based on optical fibers and liquid core waveguides (LCWs) is described. The main part of the detection cell is a fused-silica capillary coated with Teflon AF serving as an LCW. The optical fibers are used both for coupling the excitation source with the detection domain in the LCW and for the axial fluorescence collection from the LCW end. The latter fiber is connected with a compact CCD spectrometer that serves for the rejection of the scattered excitation light and for the fluorescence signal detection. The proposed design offers a compact fluorescence detector for various microcolumn separation techniques without optical elements such as filters or objectives. Moreover, its construction and optical adjustment are very simple and the whole system is highly miniaturized. The function of the detection cell is demonstrated by CE of amino acids labelled by fluorescein-based tags. Separations of different standard amino acid mixtures and plasma samples are presented. The comparison of plasma amino acid levels of individuals being in good health with those of patients with inherited metabolic disorders is also shown.

Separation of microcystins by capillary electrochromatography in monolithic columns.

Contribution on microcystin variant analysis by capillary electrochromatography (CEC) with easily affordable spectrophotometric detection is presented. Two types of reversed-phase capillary columns formed by inorganic or organic polymer monoliths were prepared for this purpose. The analyses were performed isocratically by means of tris(hydroxymethyl) aminomethane (TRIS) buffers of mildly alkaline pH containing 30% (v/v) acetonitrile as the mobile phases. The samples were injected electrokinetically and the analyses were done at the same separation field strength of 500 V/cm. Microcystins were detected at 238 nm. Although both column types differ not only in monolith quality (inorganic versus organic) but also in the length of the aliphatic moiety (C8 versus C12) similar results were achieved. The on-column preconcentration as the encouraging prospect of electrochromatographic technique was also tested. Consequently 5% of column volume was injected in contrast with 0.5% at standard injection scheme resulting in the six times enrichment of the low concentrated cyanobacterial extract at the top of the separation column. From these preliminary results can be seen that the CEC method is fully applicable for rapid microcystin screening.

Fluorescence detection system for capillary separations utilizing a liquid core waveguide with an optical fibre-coupled compact spectrometer.

A fluorescence detection system for capillary liquid separation methods is described. The system is based on a silica capillary coated with a low refractive index fluoropolymer Teflon AF that serves both as a separation channel and as a liquid core waveguide (LCW). A fibre-coupled laser excites separated analytes in a detection point and arising fluorescence is collected at one end of the LCW capillary into the other optical fibre which brings it to a compact charge-coupled device (CCD) array spectrometer installed in a desktop computer. No additional components such as focusing optics or filters are necessary. This system was used for detecting isoelectrically focused fluorescent low-molecular-mass pI (isoelectric point) markers and fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) labelled proteins. The ability of the system to acquire fluorescent spectra is also demonstrated.

Sample injection in capillary electrochromatography by heart-cut technique.

The splitter working in heart-cut regime was used for sample injection in capillary electrochromatography. The principle was implemented in an automated microgradient system allowing to inject from microlitre down to nanolitre volumes with high repeatability and minimal extra-column band broadening. The apparatus is able to deliver discrete volumes of liquids at a preset volumetric flow rate and to stop and restore the flow at any moment. This brings a high degree of liquid manipulation flexibility. An extremely low split ratio is sufficient during the analysis, which saves mobile phase consumption substantially. The key parameters influencing the function of the heart-cut splitter were characterised. The function of the apparatus was demonstrated under isocratic, preconcentration and gradient capillary electrochromatography separation conditions. In all cases the statistic evaluation of the main parameters was performed, showing that high repeatability of retention times, peak heights and areas was achieved.