Determination of α- and ß-acids in hops by liquid chromatography or electromigration techniques: A critical review.

Hop plays an essential role in brewing beer and its study and analysis is of paramount importance. - and -acids are considered two of the most important hop components. While -acids are associated with the bitter flavor, -acids have antimicrobial effects. This work aims to critically review the published analytical methods for - and -acids determination in hops employing separation methods in liquid medium: liquid chromatography (LC) and capillary electrophoresis (CE). The types of hop samples, the optimized protocols to extract the hop acids, and the main instrumental conditions for both LC and CE techniques are highlighted and discussed. Specific and critical aspects of the - and ß-acids separation by LC and CE and some challenges in this field are raised. Several key aspects discussed in this review may be of practical importance for brewers, whether in the microbrewery or industry and for researchers in the brewing field.

Capillary zone electrophoresis method for the direct determination of amino acids in recombinant human erythropoietin preparations used for the treatment of anemia.

A method based on CZE for the determination of glutamic acid, glycine, and alanine in a biopharmaceutical formulation containing recombinant human erythropoietin was developed. The separation was achieved within less than 5 min, using a fused-silica capillary column (55 cm × 50 µm id) and 30 mmol/L phosphate buffer at pH 11.5, containing 0.6 mmol/L CTAB and 10% v/v methanol, as BGE solution. Applied potential of -25 kV, temperature of 15°C and hydrodynamic injection time of 15 s, at 50 mbar, were employed. The detection of the analytes was carried out without any derivatization reaction, at 220 nm using an UV-DAD detector. Linear ranges from 50 to 2500 mg/L and quantification limits of 40, 39, and 37 mg/L were obtained for glutamic acid, glycine, and alanine, respectively. Sample preparation required only a dilution step. Considering peak area and migration time values, the method presented good repeatability (RSD <1.7%; n = 9) and intermediate precision (RSD <1.0%; n = 6). Recovery evaluation using a commercial sample led to values between 97.5 ± 5.2% and 101.5 ± 4.6%, demonstrating the feasibility of the method, which was successfully applied in the quantification of the amino acids of interest in biopharmaceutical samples.