Dihydrogen Bond in the Aminoborane Complex of a Nicergoline Intermediate.

An aminoborane side product from the nicergoline manufacture process was identified by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. As boranes of pharmaceutical molecules are quite rare, the binding potential of the BH3 group was investigated and compared with similar compounds using Cambridge Structural Database (CSD). Surprisingly, the packing was stabilized by a dihydrogen bond, which triggered a false alert for too-short contact of hydrogen atoms in IUCR checkCIF. As the dihydrogen bond concept is not widely known, such an alert might mislead crystallographers to force -CH3 optimal geometry to -BH3 groups. The B-H distances equal to or less than 1.0 Å (17% of the CSD structures) are substantially biased when analyzing the structures of aminoborane complexes in CSD. To conduct proper searching, B-H bond length normalization should be applied in the CSD search.

Changes in the Solid State of Nicergoline, a Poorly Soluble Drug, Under Different Grinding and Environmental Conditions: Effect on Polymorphism and Dissolution.

Nicergoline native crystals (Form I) were subjected to different grinding methods for 15, 30, 45, and 60 min: Method A, grinding at 20°C under air atmosphere; Method B, grinding in presence of liquid nitrogen under air atmosphere; Method C, grinding at 20°C under nitrogen atmosphere; and Method D, grinding in presence of liquid nitrogen under nitrogen atmosphere. Scanning electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, X-ray powder diffractometry, thermogravimetry, and infrared spectroscopy were used to follow changes in the particle size and in crystalline structures. Batches from Methods A and C underwent partial amorphization immediately after grinding; Form II was obtained by heating these partially amorphous forms or after spontaneous crystallization after 1 and 5 months storage. Method B promoted the hydration of nicergoline to a monohydrate form. Batch D was stable under grinding and neither amorphization nor hydration were observed. The best intrinsic dissolution rate was that of metastable Form II, followed by Form I, while the worst was that of the Method B monohydrate form. The slowest particle dissolution was observed for hydrated particles, because of the lowest IDR, while the most rapid was exhibited by batch D, because of the very small particle size.

[Identification of related substances in nicergoline by HPLC-MS].

To study the related substances in nicergoline, electrospray positive ionization high resolution TOF/MS was used for the determination of the accurate mass and elemental composition of the related substances. Triple quadrupoles tandem MS/MS was employed for the determination of the fragmentations of the parent ions. 16 related substances were detected and identified to be eight synthetic by-products and eight degradation products, by using impurity references matching, product mass spectra fragmentations elucidation, and verified further according to synthetic processes and stress testing results. The results obtained are valuable for nicergoline manufacturing process control and quality assurance.

pH-driven colloidal transformations based on the vasoactive drug nicergoline.

The structure of colloidal self-assembled drug delivery systems can be influenced by intermolecular interactions between drug and amphiphilic molecules, and is important to understand in the context of designing improved delivery systems. Controlling these structures can enable controlled or targeted release systems for poorly water-soluble drugs. Here we present the interaction of the hydrophobic vasoactive drug nicergoline with the internal structure of nanostructured emulsion particles based on the monoglyceride-water system. Addition of this drug leads to modification of the internal bicontinuous cubic structure to generate highly pH-responsive systems. The colloidal structures were characterized with small-angle X-ray scattering and visualized using cryogenic transmission electron microscopy. Reversible transformations to inverse micelles at high pH, vesicles at low pH, and the modification of the spacing of the bicontinuous cubic structure at intermediate pH were observed, and enabled the in situ determination of an apparent pKa for the drug in this system--a difficult task using solution-based approaches. The characterization of this phase behavior is also highly interesting for the design of pH-responsive controlled release systems for poorly water-soluble drug molecules.

Effect of four different size reduction methods on the particle size, solubility enhancement and physical stability of nicergoline nanocrystals.

Nicergoline, a poorly soluble active pharmaceutical ingredient, possesses vaso-active properties which causes peripheral and central vasodilatation. In this study, nanocrystals of nicergoline were prepared in an aqueous solution of polysorbate 80 (nanosuspension) by using four different laboratory scale size reduction techniques: high pressure homogenization (HPH), bead milling (BM) and combination techniques (high pressure homogenization followed by bead milling HPH + BM, and bead milling followed by high pressure homogenization BM + HPH). Nanocrystals were investigated regarding to their mean particles size, zeta potential and particle dissolution. A short term physical stability study on nanocrystals stored at three different temperatures (4, 20 and 40 °C) was performed to evaluate the tendency to change in particle size, aggregation and zeta potential. The size reduction technique and the process parameters like milling time, number of homogenization cycles and pressure greatly affected the size of nanocrystals. Among the techniques used, the combination techniques showed superior and consistent particle size reduction compared to the other two methods, HPH + BM and BM + HPH giving nanocrystals of a mean particle size of 260 and 353 nm, respectively. The particle dissolution was increased for any nanocrystals samples, but it was particularly increased by HPH and combination techniques. Independently to the production method, nicergoline nanocrystals showed slight increase in particle size over the time, but remained below 500 nm at 20 °C and refrigeration conditions.

Characterization of nicergoline polymorphs crystallized in several organic solvents.

Nicergoline (NIC), a poorly water-soluble semisynthetic ergot derivative, was crystallized from several organic solvents, obtaining two different polymorphic forms, the triclinic form I and the orthorhombic form II. NIC samples were then characterized by several techniques such as (13)C cross-polarization magic angle spinning solid-state spectroscopy, room-temperature and high-temperature X-ray powder diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry, and by analysis of weight loss, solvent content, powder density, morphology, and particle size. Solubility and intrinsic dissolution rates determined for the two polymorphic forms in water and hydrochloride solutions (HCl 0.1 N) were always higher for form II than for form I, which is actually the form used for the industrial preparation of NIC medicinal products. Preformulation studies might encourage industry for the evaluation of polymorph II, as it is more suitable for pharmaceutical applications. Results in drug delivery, as well as those obtained by the above-mentioned techniques, and the application of Burger-Ramberger's rules make it possible to conclude that there is a thermodynamic relation of monotropy between the two polymorphs. This last assumption may help formulators in predicting the relative stability of the two forms.

First derivative ratio spectrophotometric, HPTLC-densitometric, and HPLC determination of nicergoline in presence of its hydrolysis-induced degradation product.

Three methods are presented for the determination of Nicergoline in presence of its hydrolysis-induced degradation product. The first method was based on measurement of the first derivative of ratio spectra amplitude of Nicergoline at 291 nm. The second method was based on separation of Nicergoline from its degradation product followed by densitometric measurement of the spots at 287 nm. The separation was carried out on HPTLC silica gel F(254) plates, using methanol-ethyl acetate-glacial acetic acid (5:7:3, v/v/v) as mobile phase. The third method was based on high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) separation and determination of Nicergoline from its degradation product on a reversed phase, nucloesil C(18) column using a mobile phase of methanol-water-glacial acetic acid (80:20:0.1, v/v/v) with UV detection at 280 nm. Chlorpromazine hydrochloride was used as internal standard. Laboratory prepared mixtures containing different percentages of the degradation product were analysed by the proposed methods and satisfactory results were obtained. These methods have been successfully applied to the analysis of Nicergoline in Sermion tablets. The validities of these methods were ascertained by applying standard addition technique, the mean percentage recovery +/- R.S.D.% was found to be 99.47 +/- 0.752, 100.01 +/- 0.940, 99.75 +/- 0.740 for the first derivative of ratio spectra method, the HPTLC method and the HPLC method, respectively. The proposed methods were statistically compared with the manufacturer's HPLC method of analysis of Nicergoline and no significant difference was found with respect to both precision and accuracy. They have the advantage of being stability indicating. Therefore, they can be used for routine analysis of the drug in quality control laboratories.

Drug-protein conjugates: haptenation of 1-methyl-10 alpha-methoxydihydrolysergol and 5-bromonicotinic acid to albumin for the production of epitope-specific monoclonal antibodies against nicergoline.

Two types of monoclonal antibodies were used for the determination of nicergoline in biological matrices. The antibodies were prepared with the hydrolysis products 5-bromonicotinic acid and 1-methyl-10 alpha-methoxydihydrolysergol after hemisuccinoylation to haptens. The current amide bond-generating methods (mixed anhydride-, carbodiimide-, carbodiimide/sulfo-N-hydroxysuccinimide-, and dicyclohexylcarbodiimide/N-hydroxysuccinimide methods) were used in bovine serum albumin (BSA)-coupling techniques and yielded conjugates that were haptenated to varying extents. The conjugates exhibiting 23 mol of 1-methyl-10 alpha-methoxydihydrolysergol (MMD) or 41 mol of 5-bromonicotinic acid (BNA) per mole of BSA were used for both immunization of mice and for coating the wells of the microtiter plates to select hybridomas and investigate specificity of the obtained antibodies. The results of hapten-inhibition ELISA using antigen-coated wells indicate that the supernatant of MMD-specific hybridoma exhibited 50% inhibition of antibody binding at 17 +/- 2 micrograms of MMD and at 24.5 +/- 2 micrograms of nicergoline, and the BNA-specific hybridoma exhibited similar inhibition at 147 +/- 6 micrograms of BNA and 500 +/- 30 micrograms of nicergoline. A main requirement for analytical purposes is that two different types of monoclonal antibodies recognize two different epitopes on nicergoline and its main metabolite, as shown by hapten-inhibition ELISA.