Chiral Separations: A Review of Current Topics and Trends

Facile synthesis of magnetic homochiral metal-organic frameworks for "enantioselective fishing"

Magnetic functionalized homochiral metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) were prepared and applied to efficient enantioselective fishing of chiral drug intermediates. Under optimized conditions, the enantiomeric excess (ee) value as high as 85.2% was achieved for methyl phenyl sulfoxide (MPS) within 3 min.

Study on the determination and chiral inversion of R-salbutamol in human plasma and urine by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

The chiral inversion has been a concerned issue during the research and development of a chiral drug. In this study, a sensitive chiral liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method was developed for determination of salbutamol enantiomers in human plasma and urine. The chiral inversion mechanism of R-salbutamol was fully investigated for the first time by studying the effects of physicochemical factors, including pH, temperature and time. A fitted model to predict the chiral inversion ratio of R-salbutamol was proposed using a Box-Behnken design. All the samples were separated on an Astec Chirobiotic T column and detected by a tandem mass spectrometer in multiple reaction monitoring mode. Lower limit of quantification of 0.100ng/mL was achieved under the optimized conditions. The method was fully validated and successfully applied to the clinical pharmacokinetic study of R-salbutamol in healthy volunteers. Chiral inversion of R-salbutamol to S-salbutamol has been detected in urine samples. The results indicated that pH and temperature were two dominant factors that caused the chiral inversion of R-salbutamol, which should be taken into consideration during the analysis of chiral drugs. The chiral inversion of R-salbutamol determined in this study was confirmed resulted from the gastric acid in stomach rather than caused by the analysis conditions. Moreover, the calculated results of the fitted model matched very well with the enantioselective pharmacokinetic study of R-salbutamol, and the individual difference of the chiral inversion ratio of R-salbutamol was related to the individual gastric environment. On the basis of the results, this study provides important and concrete information not only for the chiral analysis but also for the metabolism research of chiral drugs.

Diastereomeric liquid crystal domains at the mesoscale

In many technologies used to achieve separation of enantiomers, chiral selectors are designed to display differential affinity for the two enantiomers of a chiral compound. Such complexes are diastereomeric, differing in structure and free energy for the two enantiomers and enabling chiral discrimination. Here we present evidence for strong diastereomeric interaction effects at the mesoscale, manifested in chiral liquid crystal guest materials confined in a chiral, nanoporous network of semi-crystalline helical nanofilaments. The nanoporous host is itself an assembly of achiral, bent-core liquid crystal molecules that phase-separate into a conglomerate of 100 micron-scale, helical nanofilament domains that differ in structure only in the handedness of their homogeneous chirality. With the inclusion of a homochiral guest liquid crystal, these enantiomeric domains become diastereomeric, exhibiting unexpected and markedly different mesoscale structures and orientation transitions producing optical effects in which chirality has a dominant role.

Teicoplanin bonded sub-2 μm superficially porous particles for enantioseparation of native amino acids

Superficially porous particles (SPPs) demonstrate superior efficiency than totally porous particles in chiral separations. In order to obtain high efficiency and fast separation, sub-2 μm SPPs with high surface area are synthesized, and with teicoplanin bonded, such materials are successfully applied into the rapid enantioseparation of native amino acids. In brief, 1.27 ± 0.06 μm nonporous silica particles are prepared by a modified seeded growth method, followed by mesoporous shell fabrication via one-pot templated dissolution and redeposition strategy, and pore size expansion via acid-refluxing. The diameter of the formed SPPs is 1.49 ± 0.04 μm, with the shell thickness as 206 nm. Nitrogen physisorption experiments show that the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) specific surface area is 213.6 m(2)/g and pore size is 9 nm. After teicoplanin derivatization with bonding capacity as 83.3 μmol/g, the prepared chiral stationary phase is packed into a stainless steel tube with the geometry of 50 mm × 2.1 mm i.d.. In less than 6.4 min, six native amino acids (norleucine, alanine, valine, methionine, leucine, norvaline) are enantioseparated with resolution factors ranging from 1.9 to 5.0. Besides, the resolution for chiral separation is improved with ethanol-water instead of methanol-water as the mobile phase. Moreover, the low temperature gives higher resolution, but longer retention time and higher backpressure. Finally, the effect of flow rate on enantiomeric separation is studied and fast chiral separation within 1 min is obtained with flow rate of 0.4 mL/min. All these results show that the synthesized teicoplanin bonded sub-2 μm SPPs have great potential to achieve the enantioseparation of native amino acids with high resolution and rapid speed.

Towards enantioselective adsorption in surface-confined nanoporous systems

The adsorption of chiral molecules in surface-confined chiral porous networks shows pronounced selectivity, as a result of complementary host-guest interactions.

Fabrication of chiral amino acid ionic liquid modified magnetic multifunctional nanospheres for centrifugal chiral chromatography separation of racemates

As the rapid development of nanotechnology, the magnetic nanospheres modified with special chiral selective ligands show a great potentiality in enantiomeric separation. In this study, magnetic nanospheres modified with task-specific chiral ionic liquid were designed for the separation of chiral amino acids. These modified magnetic nanospheres were effective in a direct chiral separation of five racemic amino acids (D- and L-cysteine, D- and L-arginine, D- and L-leucine, D- and L-glutamine and D- and L-tryptophan). Furthermore, a new online method for complete separation of the enantiomers via the magnetic nanospheres was established with centrifugal chiral chromatography using a spiral tube assembly mounted on a type-J coil planet centrifuge. One kind of chiral compounds, D- and L-tryptophan was resolved well using this method. These results demonstrated that the modified nanospheres display a good chiral recognition ability, and can be used as a potential material for chiral separation of various racemates.

Surface mediated chiral interactions between cyclodextrins and propranolol enantiomers: a SERS and DFT study

The enantioselective interactions between β-cyclodextrin and propranolol enantiomers proved by SERS and DFT.

Spectral, thermal, and molecular modeling studies on the encapsulation of selected sulfonamide drugs in β-cyclodextrin nano-cavity

In the present work the inclusion complexation of three sulfonamide (SA) drugs, namely sulfisoxazole (SSX), sulfamethizole (SMZ), and Sulfamethazine (STM) with β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) has been investigated using UV-Vis spectroscopy, DSC, (1)H NMR spectroscopy, and molecular modeling methods. The binding constant (Kb) of SA:β-CD inclusion complexation was determined via applying the modified form of Benesi-Hildebrand equation employing the changes in absorbance at λmax. Obtained results revealed that SA drugs form 1:1 inclusion complex with β-CD with Kb of 650, 1532, 714M(-1) at 25°C for SSX, SMZ, and STM, respectively. The UV-Vis absorption spectra displayed solvatochromic behavior of bathochromic shift with decreasing solvent polarity that in turn is good agreement with their behavior in the presence of β-CD in terms of environment polarity dependency. The inclusion complex formation between β-CD and tested SA drugs in liquid and solid states was confirmed by (1)H NMR and DSC, respectively. Using semi-empirical quantum chemistry methods at PM3 theoretical level, inclusion complexes' structures as well as energetic and thermodynamic parameters of encapsulation were elucidated. Obtained results revealed that the encapsulation is favorably energetic and enthalpic in nature with the inclusion of the aniline moiety through the wide rim side of β-CD nano-cavity. Further, molecular modeling revealed that β-CD encapsulation of SA drugs reduced their (EHOMO-ELUMO) gap.

Enantiomeric separation by microchip electrophoresis using bovine serum albumin conjugated magnetic core-shell Fe3 O4 @Au nanocomposites as stationary phase

In this work, a novel enantioselective MCE was developed employing BSA-conjugated Fe3 O4 @Au nanoparticles (Fe3 O4 @Au NPs) as stationary phase. Fe3 O4 @Au NPs with high magnetic responsively, excellent solubility, and high dispersibility in water were prepared through a sonochemical synthesis strategy. BSA was then immobilized onto the Fe3 O4 @Au NPs surfaces through the well-developed interaction between Au NPs and amine groups of BSA to form Fe3 O4 @Au NPs-BSA conjugates, which were then locally packed into PDMS microchannels with the help of magnets. The resultant Fe3 O4 @Au NPs-BSA conjugates not only have the magnetism of Fe3 O4 NPs that make them easily manipulated by an external magnetic field, but also have the larger surface and excellent biocompatibility of Au shell, which can incorporate much more biomolecules and well maintain their biological activity. In addition, the successful BSA decorations endowed Fe3 O4 @Au NPs-BSA conjugates with pH-tunable water solubility related to the pI of BSA (pI 4.7) and led to enhanced stability against high ionic strength. Compared with the native PDMS microchannel, the modified surfaces exhibited more stable and suppressed electroosmotic mobility, and less nonspecific adsorption toward analytes. Successful separation of chiral amino acids (tryptophan and threonine) and ofloxacin enantiomers demonstrate that the constructed MCE columns own ideal enantioselectivity. The results are expected to open up a new possibility for high-throughput screening of enantiomers with protein targets as well as a new application of magnetic NPs.

Potential of vancomycin for the enantiomeric resolution of FMOC-amino acids by capillary electrophoresis-ion-trap-mass spectrometry

The potential of the antibiotic vancomycin (VC) as chiral selector for the enantiomeric separation of amino acids by CE-ESI-MS/MS² was investigated for the first time in this work. Derivatization of amino acids with FMOC-Cl was carried out to enable their interaction with VC as well as the formation of precursor ions with larger m/z which were employed in MS² experiments. The partial filling of a coated capillary was employed to avoid the loss in MS sensitivity originated by the introduction of VC in the ionization source. Under optimized conditions, the simultaneous enantiomeric separation and unequivocal identification of 17 amino acids (two of them being nonprotein amino acids) took place in about 20 min with LODs in the micromolar range.

Enantiomeric differentiation of aromatic amino acids using traveling wave ion mobility-mass spectrometry

The present work describes the first differentiation of amino acids enantiomers using the coupling of traveling wave ion mobility and mass spectrometry.