Evaluation of the separation mechanism of electrokinetic chromatography with a microemulsion and cyclodextrins using NMR and molecular modeling

Single isomer cyclodextrins as chiral selectors in capillary electrophoresis

Since decades, cyclodextrins are one of the most powerful selectors in chiral capillary electrophoresis for the enantioseparation of diverse organic compounds. This review concerns papers published over the last decade (from 2009 until nowadays), dealing with the capillary electrophoretic application of single isomer cyclodextrin derivatives in chiral separations. Following a brief overview of their synthetic approaches, the inventory of the neutral, negatively and positively charged (including both permanently ionic and pH-tunable ionizable substituents) and zwitterionic CD derivatives is presented, with insights to underlying structural aspects by NMR spectroscopy and molecular modeling. CE represents an ideal tool to study the weak, non-covalent supramolecular interactions. The published methods are reviewed in the light of enantioselectivity, enantiomer migration order and the fine-tuning of enantiodiscrimination by the substitution pattern of the single entity selector molecules, which is hardly possible for their randomly substituted counterparts. All the reviewed publications herein support that cyclodextrin-based chiral capillary electrophoresis seems to remain a popular choice in pharmaceutical and biomedical analysis.

Recognition Mechanisms of Chiral Selectors: An Overview

Stereospecific recognition of chiral molecules plays an important role in nature as the basis of the interaction of chiral bioactive compounds with the chiral target structures. In separation sciences such as chromatographic and capillary electromigration techniques, interactions between chiral analytes and chiral selectors, i.e., the formation of transient diastereomeric complexes in thermodynamic equilibria, are the basis for chiral separations. Due to the large structural variety of chiral selectors, different structural features contribute to the overall chiral recognition process. This introductory chapter briefly summarizes the present understanding of the structural enantioselective recognition processes for various types of chiral selectors.

Thermodynamic compatibility between cyclodextrin supramolecular complexes and surfactant

Supramolecular structures based on cyclodextrins have been extensively used for drug delivery systems over decades. However, combining host and guest molecules in a pharmaceutical formulation is not a trivial process, being one of the majors concern the inclusion complex compatibility with other excipients presented in the final formulation. Herein, experimental and theoretical calculations were used to investigate the competition of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) with atenolol (ATE) or losartan (LOS), antihypertensive drugs widely used in the treatment of hypertension. Our findings, using nuclear magnetic resonance and isothermal titrations calorimetry experiments and molecular dynamic simulations demonstrated that LOS remain included into CD cavity after excipient (SDS) addition, which was not verified for ATE ternary system, being the drug displaced by SDS molecule.

Separation of ketoprofen enantiomers at nanomolar concentration levels by micellar electrokinetic chromatography with on-line electrokinetic preconcentration

Abstract Separation of enantiomers represents an extremely important task in the field of analytical chemistry. This paper contributes to the field of the on-line preconcentration of enantiomers by developing a novel setup based on the electrokinetic accumulation of ketoprofen enantiomers on the pH boundary followed by enantioselective mobilization by a mixture of SDS, sulfated-β-cyclodextrin (S-β-CD), and trimethyl-β-cyclodextrin (TM-β-CD). Under the best conditions, where the injection electrolyte was composed of 50 mmol L−1 borate/NaOH pH 9.5 with 60% (v/v) methanol, the background electrolyte contained 50 mmol L−1 phosphate/NaOH pH 2.5, and the mobilization electrolyte consisted of 50 mmol L−1 phosphate/NaOH pH 2.5 with 4.0% (w/v) S-β-CD, 0.5% (w/v) TM-β-CD, and 20 mmol L−1 SDS, the determination of nanomolar concentration levels of ketoprofen enantiomers was successful by using micellar electrokinetic chromatography with a common UV detection. LODs were 2.5 nmol L−1 and 3.4 nmol L−1, which represent enhancement factors of 9921 and 8529, respectively. The method was also applied to the determination of ketoprofen enantiomers in waste water samples by using simple filtration as a clean-up step. Here, the recovery of ketoprofen enantiomers was 91% at the concentration level of 5×10−9 mol L−1. Graphical abstract

Differentiation of enantiomers by capillary electrophoresis

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) has matured to one of the major liquid phase enantiodifferentiation techniques since the first report in 1985. This can be primarily attributed to the flexibility as well as the various modes available including electrokinetic chromatography (EKC), micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC), and microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography (MEEKC). In contrast to chromatographic techniques, the chiral selector is mobile in the background electrolyte. Furthermore, a large variety of chiral selectors are available that can be easily combined in the same separation system. In addition, the migration order of the enantiomers can be adjusted by a number of approaches. In CE enantiodifferentiations the separation principle is comparable to chromatography while the principle of the movement of the analytes in the capillary is based on electrophoretic phenomena. The present chapter will focus on mechanistic aspects of CE enantioseparations including enantiomer migration order and the current understanding of selector-selectand structures. Selected examples of the basic enantioseparation modes EKC, MEKC, and MEEKC will be discussed.

A review of developments in the methodology and application of microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography

MEEKC is a mode of CE, which utilizes microemulsion (ME) as the BGE to achieve separation of a diverse range of analytes. MEs are composed of nanometer-sized oil droplets suspended in aqueous buffer which are stabilized by the presence of a surfactant and co-surfactant. These MEs are commonly referred to as oil-in-water MEs and their application in MEEKC has been extensively examined. This review details advances in the theory, methodology, and application of MEEKC during the period 2010-2012. Areas covered include online sample concentration, advances in chiral separations, use of coated capillaries, chemometric approaches, and the use of novel additives to the ME system. This review also provides the reader with an introduction to MEEKC and a presentation of recent applications.