Separation methods for antibacterial and antirheumatism agents in plant medicines

Traditional oriental medicines (TOM), with a very long history and many remarkable features, are very popular in Asian countries, especially in China, Japan and Korea. With the development of advanced analytical techniques, the modernization of traditional medicine has become a hot area in recent years and some herbal medicines have been increasingly accepted in western countries. Separation and determination of active components in various herbal medicines are considered to be critical for the modernization process. Antibacterial and antirheumatism agents are widely distributed in many medical plants and commonly used in clinical treatment. Therefore, the development of effective separation methods for the quality control of herbal medicines is absolutely important. In this article, the separation methods for the analysis of antibacterial and antirheumatism compounds in TOM were reviewed, including thin layer chromatography (TLC), gas chromatography (GC), supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), capillary electrophoresis (CE) and related hyphenation techniques. Sample preparation procedures and further development of these methods were also discussed.     

Liquid chromatography of active principles in Sophora flavescens root

Herbal medicines were one of the major resources for healthcare in earlier stages, and some traditional herbal medicines have been in use for more than 2000 years. Currently, they are attracting more and more attention of the modern pharmaceutical industry, as scientists has become aware that herbs have almost infinite resources for medicine development. This review provides an overview of the analytical approaches applied in the researches concentrated on various aspects of the matrine-type alkaloids in Sophora flavescens root. Emphasis will be laid on the analytical processes of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), capillary electrophoresis (CE), as well as gas chromatography (GC) methods. The sample extraction, separation and detection have been summarized. In addition, the applications of chromatographic determinations are introduced for the main matrine-type alkaloids in S. flavescens root, such as matrine, sophoridine, sophocarpine, lehmannine, sophoramine, oxymartine, oxysophocarpine, cytosine and aloperine. The advantages and limitations of HPLC, CE and GC methods in the analytical applications of the alkaloids are also discussed.     

Recent progress in capillary electrophoretic analysis of amino acid enantiomers

This review highlights recent progresses in capillary electrophoresis (CE) analysis of amino acid enantiomers in the last decade. Various chiral selectors including cyclodextrins (CDs), bile salts, crown ethers, cinchona alkaloids, metal-chiral amino acid complexes, macrocyclic antibiotics and proteins have been employed to separate amino acid enantiomers. In the CE analysis of amino acids, the selection of the separation mode is one of the most important issues to obtain good resolution of target enantiomers. Among several separation modes, CD-modified capillary zone electrophoresis (CD-CZE), CD electrokinetic chromatography (CDEKC), micellar EKC (MEKC), CD-modified micellar electrokinetic chromatography (CD-MEKC), capillary electrochromatography (CEC), ligand-exchange CE (LE-CE), and nonaqueous CE (NACE) have been employed to the chiral analysis of amino acids. More than 160 published research articles collected from SciFinder Scholar databases from the year 2001 described the enantioseparations of amino acids by capillary-based electrophoresis. This review provides a comprehensive table listing the CE analysis of amino acid enantiomers with categorizing by the separation modes.     

Analysis of liposomes by capillary electrophoresis and their use as carrier in electrokinetic chromatography

This contribution reviews work about liposomes in the context of electrically driven separation methods in the capillary format. The discussion covers four topics. The one broaches the application of liposomes as pseudo-stationary phases or carriers in vesicle or liposome electrokinetic chromatography (EKC) in the way as microemulsions and micelles are used; it includes the chromatographic use of liposomal bilayers as stationary phases attached to the wall for capillary electrochromatography (CEC). The second topic is the characterization and separation of liposomes as analytes by capillary electrophoresis (CE). Then the determination of distribution coefficients and binding constants between liposomes and ligands is discussed, and finally work dealing with peptides and proteins are reviewed with lipid bilayers as constituents of the electrically driven separation system.     

Clinical applications of capillary electrophoresis

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is an extremely sensitive technique, which has been used in the clinical laboratory for almost 10 yr. The components of CE instrumentation are described, as are injection modes, buffers, and effects of electroosmotic flow. The modes of separation used in CE, namely, capillary zone electrophoresis, capillary isoelectric focusing, capillary isotachophoresis, and micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography, are explained. References for 26 different clinical applications of CE are included, among them assays that are used routinely as well as niche assays for specialized applications of CE. Verification of CE assays, current instrumentation, and future development of CE in the clinical laboratory are addressed.     

Analysis of sugars in traditional Chinese drugs

This review is presented of chromatography and electromigration methods currently in use to determine sugars in traditional Chinese drugs: gas chromatography (GC), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), ion-exchange chromatography, gel column chromatography (GCC), paper chromatography (PC) and thin layer chromatography (TLC), capillary electrophoresis (CE) and gel electrophoresis (GEP). The detection methods combined with above separation methods including ultra-violet, mass spectra, fluorescent light, refractive index (RI), electrochemical detection are also described. For the complicacy of structural analysis of polysaccharides in traditional Chinese drugs, the hyphenation procedures concerned with this analysis are introduced in this article too.     

Tropane alkaloid analysis by chromatographic and electrophoretic techniques: An update

Tropane alkaloids like atropine are antidotes applied against organophosphorus intoxications. Atropine is toxic itself and should be closely monitored during treatment. Hence, simple, fast, and sensitive determination methods for tropane alkaloids in serum are desirable. Mostly adopted methods of analysis are gas chromatography (GC); high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and capillary electrophoresis (CE). Various liquid and solid capillary fillings used in micellar electrokinetic chromatography, microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography, capillary electrochromatography, and enantioseparation provide high versatility to CE applications. In HPLC, specialised columns enhance separation efficacy. Ultraviolet light detection is common practise, but recently sensitivity and analyte identification were enhanced by coupling GC, HPLC, and CE to mass spectrometry. Apart from medical treatment, tropane alkaloids, cocaine in particular, are abused with various intentions. Forensic analysis of tropane alkaloids and their metabolites comprises the additional difficulty of unequivocal drug identification. Because of severe legal consequences, sophisticated analytical methods were developed and may provide additional techniques for therapeutic drug monitoring. Examples from forensic cocaine analysis and from doping analysis are included in this review.     

Recent developments of enantioseparation techniques for adrenergic drugs using liquid chromatography and capillary electrophoresis: a review

This review provides the achievements of enantioseparation of adrenergic drugs and application of these methods in clinical and pharmaceutical analysis. The adrenergic agonist and antagonist drugs are analyzed in the direct and indirect modes by liquid chromatography (LC) and capillary electrophoresis (CE). Other chromatographic enantioseparation methods including super- and sub-critical fluid chromatography (SFC), and capillary electrochromatography (CEC) are presented likewise to analyse the cited compounds. The different separation processes for these drugs are briefly discussed and some applications are presented.     

Determination of illicit and/or abused drugs and compounds of forensic interest in biosamples by capillary electrophoretic/electrokinetic methods

The application of capillary electrophoresis (CE) methods in forensic toxicology for the determination of illicit and/or misused drugs in biological samples is reviewed in the present paper. Sample pretreatments and direct injection modes used in CE for analysis of drugs in biological fluids are briefly described. Besides, applications of separation methods based on capillary zone electrophoresis or micellar electrokinetic chromatography with UV absorbance detection to (i) analysis of drugs of abuse, (ii) analysis of other drugs and toxicants of potential forensic interest and (iii) for metabolism studies are reviewed. Also, alternative CE methods are briefly discussed, including capillary isotachophoresis and separation on mixed polymer networks. High sensitivity detection methods used for forensic drug analysis in biological samples are then presented, particularly those based on laser induced fluorescence. A glimpse of the first examples of application of CE–mass spectrometry in forensic toxicology is finally given.     

Enantioselective separations using capillary electrophoresis

The preconditions are outlined for enantioselective separations in capillary electrophoresis (CE) with chiral selectors as additives to the background electrolyte. Free solution capillary electrophoresis conditions are characterised by a single solution phase. Chiral separations are reviewed by selector type (chiral ligand exchange, cyclodextrins, crown ethers, glycoproteins) with the extensive studies on cyclodextrins grouped into sections on amino acids, pharmaceuticals, and speciality chemicals, optimisation, biological fluids, and quantitative aspects. In micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography, enantioselective discrimination occurs by partition in a two-phase system, with a chiral micellar phase as selector. Optimum separation conditions can be readily predicted for a given selector–selectand combination, and absolute values of binding constants determined by CE. Advantages of CE in comparison with HPLC using a chiral stationary phase include robust, rapid assays and the use of small volumes of aqueous solutions; disadvantages include less favourable detection limits. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Separation and quantitation of azimilide and its putative metabolites by capillary electrophoresis

Reliable methods based on capillary electrophoresis (CE) have been developed for the separation and quantitation of azimilide, an antiarrhythmic drug under development at Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals (P&GP). Both capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) and micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography (MECC) were employed in the separation of azimilide from its impurities, degradants and/or metabolites. Separation of azimilide from NE-11178, F-410, F-1054 and F-1292 was obtained by MECC at pH 9 with 50 mM sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). The separation of azimilide and NE-10171, a key metabolite of azimilide, was difficult because their structures differ by only a single methyl group. The best separation was achieved under acidic pH conditions with cetyltriethyl ammonium chloride (CTAC) additive in the buffer. All of the CE separations were completed within a substantially shorter time and with better resolution than the corresponding high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) separations. Quantitation was done with azimilide and NE-10171. Calibration curves ranging from 10 to 1000 μg/ml were obtained with R² greater than 0.997 for both azimilide and NE-10171. The back-calculated concentrations of the calibration standards and the recoveries of the quality control (QC) samples were within the acceptance range currently used for HPLC methods. These results demonstrated the viability of CE as an alternative technique for drug metabolism studies in support of pharmaceutical development.     

Simultaneous enantioselective separation of azelastine and three of its metabolites for the investigation of the enantiomeric metabolism in rats. I. Liquid chromatography-ionspray tandem mass spectrometry and electrokinetic capillary chromatography

Enantioselective separation methods and the enantioselective determination of the anti-allergic drug azelastine and of three of its main phase I metabolites in a biological matrix underwent chromatographic and electrophoretic investigations. An enantioselective assay of a coupling of HPLC using a beta-cyclodextrin chiral stationary phase to ionspray tandem mass spectrometry is presented. Additionally, this assay is compared to another enantioselective assay using electrokinetic capillary chromatography with beta-cyclodextrin and carboxymethyl-beta-cyclodextrin in polyacrylamide-coated capillaries. For capillary electrophoresis (CE) the importance of polyacrylamide coating for the validation of this separation method is highlighted. Extracted rat plasma samples of enantioselective metabolism studies were measured by both validated assays. Differences in the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics were evaluated for the main substance azelastine and its main metabolite demethylazelastine. So, a first hint about the enantioselectivity of biotransformation of azelastine in rats was seen after oral application of either enantiomer or the racemate to rats.     

手性药物分析方法研究进展

综述了近10 年来手性药物分离检测方法的发展,包括高效液相色谱法、气相色谱法、毛细管电泳法,以及超临界流体色谱法等,旨在为该领域的进一步发展提供参考。     

Separation methods used for Scutellaria baicalensis active components

Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi is one of the most widely used traditional Chinese herbal medicines. Its roots have been used for anti-inflammation, anticancer, antiviral and antibacterial infections of the respiratory and the gastrointestinal tract, cleaning away heat, moistening aridity, purging fire, detoxifying toxicosis, reducing the total cholesterol level and decreasing blood pressures. Baicalin, baicalein, wogonin and oroxylin A are its main active components. This review provides an overview of various separation, detection, and identification techniques employed for the quantitative and qualitative determination of these active components. Applications of high-performance liquid chromatography, high-speed counter-current chromatography, thin layer chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, and micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography to the separation and determination of these active components are described. Examples of identification of these active components and their metabolites in complex matrices by high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry are also presented. The advantages and limitations of these separation and identification methods are assessed and discussed.     

Chiral separation principles in chromatographic and electromigration techniques

Almost half of the drugs in use today are chiral. It is well established that the pharmacological activity is mostly restricted to one of the enantiomers (eutomer). There can be qualitative and quantitative differences in the activity of the enantiomers. In many cases, the inactive enantiomer (distomer) shows unwanted side effects or even toxic effects. Even if the side effects are not that drastic, the distomer has to be metabolized and this represents an unnecessary burden for the organism. Therefore, the development of methods for the separation of enantiomers, both on analytical and preparative scale, has become increasingly important. Chromatographic techniques such as thin layer chromatography (TLC), gas chromatography (GC), supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC), and above all high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) have been used for enantiomer separation for about two decades. More recently, electromigration techniques, such as capillary electrophoresis and capillary electrochromatography, have been shown to be powerful alternatives to chromatographic methods. This review gives a short overview of different chiral separation principles and their application. Several new developments are discussed.     

Chromatographic and electrophoretic methods for pharmaceutically active compounds in Rhododendron dauricum

In this review, chemical constituents present in Rhododendron dauricum L. were briefly surveyed, and the methods of pretreatment of this plant prior to analysis were also summarized. The analysis methods reported for determining pharmaceutically active compounds in R. dauricum L. include gas chromatography with mass spectrscopy, thin layer chromatography (TLC), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and capillary electrophoresis (CE). In addition, both advantages and disadvantages of the above methods were mentioned.     

Cyclodextrins and enantiomeric separations of drugs by liquid chromatography and capillary electrophoresis: basic principles and new developments

Investigation of individual drug enantiomers is required in pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies of drugs with a chiral centre. Cyclodextrins (CDs) are extensively used in high-performance liquid chromatography as stationary phases bonded to a solid support or as mobile phase additives in HPLC and capillary electrophoresis (CE) for the separation of chiral compounds. We describe here the basis for the liquid chromatographic and capillary electrophoretic resolution of drug enantiomers and the factors affecting their enantiomeric separation. This review covers the use of CDs and some of their derivatives in studies of compounds of pharmacological interest.     

Drug affinity to immobilized target bio-polymers by high-performance liquid chromatography and capillary electrophoresis

This review addresses the use of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and capillary electrophoresis (CE) as affinity separation methods to characterise drugs or potential drugs-bio-polymer interactions. Targets for the development of new drugs such as enzymes (IMERs), receptors, and membrane proteins were immobilized on solid supports. After the insertion in the HPLC system, these immobilized bio-polymers were used for the determination of binding constants of specific ligands, substrates and inhibitors of pharmaceutical interest, by frontal analyses and zonal elution methods. The most used bio-polymer immobilization techniques and methods for assessing the amount of active immobilized protein are reported. Examples of increased stability of immobilized enzymes with reduced amount of used protein were shown and the advantages in terms of recovery for reuse, reproducibility and on-line high-throughput screening for potential ligands are evidenced. Dealing with the acquisition of relevant pharmacokinetic data, examples concerning human serum albumin binding studies are reviewed. In particular, papers are reported in which the serum carrier has been studied to monitor the enantioselective binding of chiral drugs and the mutual interaction between co-administered drugs by CE and HPLC. Finally CE, as merging techniques with very promising and interesting application of microscale analysis of drugs' binding parameters to immobilized bio-polymers is examined.     

An analytical system for the characterization of highly heterogeneous mixtures of N-linked oligosaccharides

A novel system for characterizing complex N-linked oligosaccharide mixtures that uses a combination of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS), capillary electrophoresis (CE), and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) has been developed. In this study, oligosaccharides released from recombinant TNK-tPA (tissue plasminogen activator) were derivatized with 5-amino-2-naphthalenesulfonic acid (ANSA). The negative charge imparted by the ANSA label facilitated the analysis of the oligosaccharides by MALDI-TOF MS by allowing the observation of both neutral and sialylated oligosaccharides in a single negative ion mode spectrum. Labeling with ANSA was also determined to be advantageous in the characterization of oligosaccharides by both HPLC and CE. The ANSA label was demonstrated to provide superior resolution over the commonly used label 8-aminopyrene-1,3,6-trisulfonic acid (APTS) in both the CE and HPLC analysis of oligosaccharides. To date, no other labels that enable the analysis of complex oligosaccharide mixtures in a single mass spectral mode, while also enabling high-resolution chromatographic and electrophoretic separation of the oligosaccharides, have been reported. By integrating the structural information obtained by MALDI-TOF MS analysis with the ability of CE and HPLC to discriminate between structural isomers, the complete characterization of complex oligosaccharide mixtures is possible.     

Current methodologies for the analysis of aminoglycosides

The aminoglycosides are a large and diverse class of antibiotics that characteristically contain two or more aminosugars linked by glycosidic bonds to an aminocyclitol component. Structures are presented for over 30 of the most important members of this family of compounds. The use of aminoglycosides in clinical and veterinary medicine and in agriculture is described. Qualitative methods for aminoglycoside analysis include X-ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and mass spectrometry (MS). The major part of this article comprises a comprehensive review of quantitative methods for the determination of aminoglycosides. These are microbiological assay, radiochemical assay, radioimmunoassay, enzyme immunoassay, fluoroimmunoassay and other immunoassays, spectrophotometric and other non-separative methods, gas chromatography (GC), thin-layer chromatography (TLC), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and capillary electrophoresis (CE). Simple spectrophotometric methods may be adequate for the assay of bulk pharmaceuticals and their formulations. Microbiological assays make useful semi-quantitative screening tests for the analysis of veterinary drug residues in food, but rapid enzyme immunoassays are more suitable for accurate measurements of aminoglycosides in complex matrices. Automated immunoassays are the most appropriate methods for serum aminoglycoside determinations during therapeutic drug monitoring. HPLC techniques provide the specificity and sensitivity required for pharmacokinetic and other research studies, while HPLC–MS is employed for the confirmation of veterinary drug residues. The potential for further development of chromatographic and CE methods for the analysis of biological samples is outlined.