Past, present, and future developments in enantioselective analysis using capillary electromigration techniques

Enantioselective Reduction of Noncovalent Complexes of Amino Acids with CuII via Resonant Collision-Induced Dissociation: Collision Energy, Activation Duration Effects, and RRKM Modeling

Formation of noncovalent complexes is one of the approaches to perform chiral analysis with mass spectrometry. Enantiomeric distinction of amino acids (AAs) based on the relative rate constants of competitive fragmentations of quaternary copper complexes is an efficient method for chiral differentiation. Here, we studied the complex [CuII,(Phe,PhG,Pro-H)]+ (m/z 493) under resonant collision-induced dissociation conditions while varying the activation time. The precursor ion can yield two main fragments through the loss of the non-natural AA phenylglycine (PhG): the expected product ion [CuII,(Phe,Pro-H)]+ (m/z 342) and the reduced product ion [CuI,(Phe,Pro)]+ (m/z 343). Enantioselective reduction describes the difference in relative abundance of these ions, which depends on the chirality of the precursor ion: the formation of the reduced ion m/z 343 is favored in homochiral complexes (DDD) compared to heterochiral complexes (such as LDD). Energy-resolved mass spectrometry data show that reduction, which arises from rearrangement, is favored at a low collision energy (CE) and long activation time (ActT), whereas direct cleavage preferentially occurs at a high CE and short ActT. These results were confirmed with kinetic modeling based on RRKM theory. For this modeling, it was necessary to set a pre-exponential factor as a reference, so that the E0 values obtained are relative values. Interestingly, these simulations showed that the critical energy E0 required to form the reduced ion is comparable in both homochiral and heterochiral complexes. However, the formation of product ion m/z 342 through direct cleavage is associated with a lower E0 in heterochiral complexes. Consequently, enantioselectivity would not be caused by enhanced reduction in homochiral complexes but rather by direct cleavage being favored in heterochiral complexes.

Chiral zeolite beta used as stationary phase for enantioseparation in miniaturized open tubular capillary electrochromatography with amperometric detection

BACKGROUND

With the rapid growth of the demand for optically pure compounds in the fields of biology, medicine and stereospecific synthesis, it is of great importance to develop efficient, economical, simple enantioseparation and analysis methods. Open tubular capillary electrochromatography (OT-CEC) has attracted much attention in the field of chiral separation, but its column capacity and the sensitivity of common-used optical detection are relatively low. Zeolite beta nanomaterial is both enantioselective and size-selective, providing suitable chiral microenvironment for chiral recognition, and amperometric detection (AD) avoids the low sensitivity caused by the short optical path in optical detection to some extent.

RESULTS

Zeolite beta nanomaterials with different particle sizes (25, 50 and 200 nm) were synthesized, and the morphology and structure were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Then, a novel chiral OT column was prepared by one-step method using zeolite beta nanomaterial as chiral stationary phase, and its separation performance was characterized by miniaturized CEC with AD (mini-CEC-AD) device. Under the optimum conditions, six groups of chiral drugs achieved baseline separation. Norepinephrine enantiomers were used for evaluating the inter-day, intra-day and inter-column reproducibility of the prepared open-tubular column. The relative standard deviations of migration time, peak area, resolution and selectivity factor were within 8.7 %. The limits of detection for norepinephrine enantiomers were 0.18 μg mL-1 (S/N = 3), and the average recoveries were in range of 96.7-105.0 %. This developed method has been successfully applied to the analysis of impurity enantiomer in potassium dichromate (+)-norepinephrine injection sample.

SIGNIFICANCE

Zeolite beta nanomaterial was used as the stationary phase to prepare chiral OT columns for the first time, and this one-step preparation method is simple and easy. The introduction of zeolite beta enriches the types of chiral stationary phase materials in electrochromatographic columns, and mini-OT-CEC-AD system provides an alternative for fast enantioseparation of chiral compounds.

Switching Separation Migration Order by Switching Electrokinetic Regime in Electrokinetic Microsystems

Analyte migration order is a major aspect in all migration-based analytical separations methods. Presented here is the manipulation of the migration order of microparticles in an insulator-based electrokinetic separation. Three distinct particle mixtures were studied: a binary mixture of particles with similar electrical charge and different sizes, and two tertiary mixtures of particles of distinct sizes. Each one of the particle mixtures was separated twice, the first separation was performed under low voltage (linear electrokinetic regime) and the second separation was performed under high voltage (nonlinear electrokinetic regime). Linear electrophoresis, which discriminates particles by charge, is the dominant electrokinetic effect in the linear regime; while nonlinear electrophoresis, which discriminates particles by size and shape, is the dominant electrokinetic effect in the nonlinear regime. The separation results obtained with the three particle mixtures illustrated that particle elution order can be changed by switching from the linear electrokinetic regime to the nonlinear electrokinetic regime. Also, in all cases, better separation performances in terms of separation resolution (Rs) were obtained by employing the nonlinear electrokinetic regime allowing nonlinear electrophoresis to be the discriminatory electrokinetic mechanism. These findings could be applied to analyze complex samples containing bioparticles of interest within the micron size range. This is the first report where particle elution order is altered in an iEK system.

The separation of cyclic diadenosine diphosphorothioate and the diastereomers of its difluorinated derivative and the estimation of the binding constants and ionic mobilities of their complexes with 2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin by affinity capillary electrophoresis

The incorporation of phosphorothioate linkages has recently been extensively employed in therapeutic oligonucleotides. For their separation and quality control, new high-efficient and high-sensitive analytical methods are needed. In this work, a new affinity capillary electrophoresis method has been developed and applied for the separation of a potential anticancer drug, 2',3'-cyclic diadenosine diphosphorothioate (Rp , Rp ) (ADU-S100), and three recently newly synthesized diastereomers of its difluorinated derivative, 3',3'-cyclic di(2'-fluoro, 2'-deoxyadenosine phosphorothioate). The separation was performed in the various background electrolytes (BGEs) within a pH range 5-9 using several native and derivatized cyclodextrins (CDs) as chiral additives of the BGE. Relatively good separations were obtained with β-, γ-, and 2-hydroxypropyl-γ-CDs in some of the BGEs tested. However, the best separation was achieved using the 2-hydroxypropyl-β-CD chiral selector at 43.5 mM average concentration in the BGE composed of 40 mM Tris, 40 mM tricine, pH 8.1. Under these conditions, all the previous four cyclic dinucleotides (CDNs) were baseline separated within 4 min. Additionally, the average apparent binding constants and the average actual ionic mobilities of the complexes of all four CDNs with 2-hydroxypropyl-β-CD in the above BGE were determined. The formed complexes were found to be relatively weak, with the average apparent binding constants in the range of 12.2-94.1 L mol-1 and with the actual ionic mobilities spanning the interval (-7.8 to -12.7) × 10-9  m2  V-1  s-1 . The developed method can be applied for the separation, analysis, and characterization of the above and similar CDNs.

Recent developments in capillary and microchip electroseparations of peptides (2021-mid-2023)

This review article brings a comprehensive survey of developments and applications of high-performance capillary and microchip electromigration methods (zone electrophoresis in a free solution or in sieving media, isotachophoresis, isoelectric focusing, affinity electrophoresis, electrokinetic chromatography, and electrochromatography) for analysis, micropreparation, and physicochemical characterization of peptides in the period from 2021 up to ca. the middle of 2023. Progress in the study of electromigration properties of peptides and various aspects of their analysis, such as sample preparation, adsorption suppression, electroosmotic flow regulation, and detection, are presented. New developments in the particular capillary electromigration methods are demonstrated, and several types of their applications are reported. They cover qualitative and quantitative analysis of synthetic or isolated peptides and determination of peptides in complex biomatrices, peptide profiling of biofluids and tissues, and monitoring of chemical and enzymatic reactions and physicochemical changes of peptides. They include also amino acid and sequence analysis of peptides, peptide mapping of proteins, separation of stereoisomers of peptides, and their chiral analyses. In addition, micropreparative separations and physicochemical characterization of peptides and their interactions with other (bio)molecules by the above CE methods are described.

Deep eutectic solvents combined with beta-cyclodextrin derivatives for chiral separation of typical adrenergic receptor agonists by capillary electrophoresis with amperometric detection

Enantioseparation has always been one of the research hotspots and difficulties in the field of modern separation science. In this work, a binary chiral electrophoretic separation system was constructed using deep eutectic solvents (DESs) coupled with beta-cyclodextrin derivatives based on capillary electrophoresis with amperometric detection system, and five groups of typical adrenergic receptor agonists (adrenaline, salbutamol, isoproterenol, norepinephrine and terbutaline) were selected as the model enantiomers. The effects of additive types and contents of DESs and cyclodextrins, and the pH value and concentration of the running buffer on the resolution of the selected chiral compounds were investigated in detail. The mechanism of DESs improving separation was explored preliminarily by means of UV spectrophotometry, which was further verified based on the comparison of single and mixed components of choline chlorine-urea DES. Under the optimum conditions, the relative standard deviations for inter-day and intra-day repeatability of the migration time, peak area and resolution for adrenaline and salbutamol were within 8.7%, and the limits of detection reached 0.030 μg mL-1 (S/N = 3). The recovery data were in the range of 96.3-118.7%. The developed methods have been applied for the analyses of (+)-adrenaline hydrochloride injection and (±)-salbutamol aerosol. This binary chiral electrophoretic separation system by CE-AD has high detection sensitivity and low analytical cost, providing an alternative for the separation and analysis of chiral drugs.

Enhancement of chiral drugs separation by a novel adjustable gravity mediated capillary electrophoresis combined with sulfonic propyl ether β-CD polymer

A water-soluble negative sulfonic propyl ether β-CD polymer (SPE-β-CDP) to be used as chiral selector in capillary electrophoresis (CE) was polymerized. The sulfonic substitution degree of each β-CD in SPE-β-CDP was statistically homogenized. The only one negative peak in electrophoretogram with indirect ultraviolate method proved its uniformity of electrophoretic behavior. There were 7.12 sulfonic substitution in β-CD unit and 164 μmole β-CD units in each gram of SPE-β-CDP, which corresponded a molecular weight of 7000 or more. Compared with monomer, SPE-β-CDP was lower effect on electrical current of CE, indicating a high concentration of SPE-β-CDP could be added. Its separation ability was verified by 12 chiral drugs. SPE-β-CDP also showed advantages of good water solubility, easy preparation and recovery to reduce the overall cost. However, five of 12 chiral drugs were hardly to be fully separated which was normal for any kind of chiral selector. A newly adjustable gravity mediated capillary electrophoresis (AGM-CE) technology was proposed and combined with SPE-β-CDP to enhance the chiral separation efficiencies of propranolol, salbutamol, omeprazole, ofloxacin and phenoxybenzamine which were markedly improved to 3.02, 1.17, 7.63, 4.14, and 2.81, respectively. Furthermore, its gradient mode (AGMg-CE) was also used to improve resolution through utilizing the zero mobility point, at which the effective apparent mobility of one racemate was zero. Resolutions of five chiral drugs were significantly improved, especially resolution of carvedilol changed from 0.43 to 1.0. These indicated SPE-β-CDP as chiral selector, AGM-CE and AGMg-CE as new CE technologies had a great potential in chiral separation.

The separation of the enantiomers of diquats by capillary electrophoresis using randomly sulfated cyclodextrins as chiral selectors

Diquats, derivatives of the widely used herbicide diquat, represent a new class of functional organic molecules. A combination of their special electrochemical properties and axial chirality could potentially result in their important applications in supramolecular chemistry, chiral catalysis, and chiral analysis. However, prior to their practical applications, the diquats have to be prepared in enantiomerically pure forms and the enantiomeric purity of their P- and M-isomers has to be checked. Hence, a chiral capillary electrophoresis (CE) method has been developed and applied for separation of P- and M-enantiomers of 11 new diquats. Fast and better than baseline CE separations of enantiomers of all 11 diquats within a short time 5-7 min were achieved using acidic buffer, 22 mM NaOH, 35 mM H3 PO4 , pH 2.5, as a background electrolyte, and 6 mM randomly sulfated α-, β-, and γ-cyclodextrins as chiral selectors. The most successful selector was sulfated γ-cyclodextrin, which baseline separated the enantiomers of all 11 diquats, followed by sulfated β-cyclodextrin and sulfated α-cyclodextrin, which baseline separated enantiomers of 10 and nine diquats, respectively. Using this method, a high enantiopurity degree of the isolated P- and M-enantiomers of three diquats with a defined absolute configuration was confirmed and their migration order was identified.

Comparison of the Performance of Different Bile Salts in Enantioselective Separation of Palonosetron Stereoisomers by Micellar Electrokinetic Chromatography

Bile salts are a category of natural chiral surfactants which have ever been used as the surfactant and chiral selector for the separation of many chiral compounds by micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC). In our previous works, the application of sodium cholate (SC) in the separation of four stereoisomers of palonosetron (PALO) by MEKC has been studied systematically. In this work, the parameters of other bile salts, including sodium taurocholate (STC), sodium deoxycholate (SDC), and sodium taurodeoxycholate (STDC) in the separation of PALO stereoisomers by MEKC were measured and compared with SC. It was found that all of four bile salts provide chiral recognition for both pairs of enantiomers, as well as achiral selectivity for diastereomers of different degrees. The structure of steroidal ring of bile salts has a greater impact on the separation than the structure of the side chain. The varying separation results by different bile salts were elucidated based on the measured parameters. A model to describe the contributions of the mobility difference of solutes in the aqueous phase and the selectivity of micelles to the chiral and achiral separation of stereoisomers was introduced. Additionally, a new approach to measure the mobility of micelles without enough solubility for hydrophobic markers was proposed, which is necessary for the calculation of separation parameters in MEKC. Under the guidance of derived equations, the separation by SDC and STDC was significantly improved by using lower surfactant concentrations. The complete separation of four stereoisomers was achieved in less than 3.5 min by using 4.0 mM of SDC. In addition, 30.0 mM of STC also provided the complete resolution of four stereoisomers due to the balance of different separation mechanisms. Its applicability for the analysis of a small amount of enantiomeric impurities in the presence of a high concentration of the effective ingredient was validated by a real sample.

Capillary Electrophoresis Mass Spectrometry: Developments and Applications for Enantioselective Analysis from 2011–2020

It is now more than 25 years since the first report of enantioselective analysis by capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (CE-MS) appeared. This article reviews the power of chiral CE-MS in resolving issues on the use of chiral selector incompatibility with MS and poor detectability encountered for chiral compounds by UV detection. The review begins with the general principles, requirements, and critical aspects of chiral CE-MS instrumentation. Next, the review provides a survey of MS-compatible chiral selectors (CSs) reported during the past decade, and the key achievements encountered in the time period using these CSs. Within the context of the strategies used to combine CE and MS, special attention is paid to the approaches that feature partial filling technique, counter-migration techniques, and direct use of CS, such as molecular micelles. In particular, the development and application of moving and fixed CS for EKC-MS, MEKC-MS, and CEC-MS demonstrate how various chiral compounds analyses were solved in a simple and elegant way during the 2010–2020 review period. The most noteworthy applications in the determination of chiral compounds are critically examined. The operating analytical conditions are detailed in the Tables, and the authors provide commentary on future trends of chiral separations by CE-MS.

Open Tubular Capillary Electrochromatography-Mass Spectrometry for Analysis of Underivatized Amino Acid Enantiomers with a Porous Layer-Gold Nanoparticle-Modified Chiral Column

By developing a novel chiral column, we integrate open tubular capillary electrochromatography into sheathless mass spectrometry (MS) for efficient analysis of underivatized amino acid enantiomers. The chiral column is easily fabricated by modifying the inner surface of a capillary with a three-dimensional porous layer (PL, thickness ∼ 90 nm, pore size ∼ 30 nm) and gold nanoparticles and by introducing a chiral selector, thiol β-cyclodextrin (SH-β-CD), onto the modified surface via Au-S bonds. This approach greatly enhances the specific surface area and thus the ratio of the stationary phase to mobile phase and interaction between the stationary phase and analytes. The proposed PLOT@Au@CD column is coupled to the sheathless CE-ESI-MS system for chiral analysis of amino acid enantiomers. No derivatization of amino acids is required for chiral analysis, and baseline separation of a total of 15 pairs of amino acid enantiomers is achieved within 17 min with high column efficiencies of 5.60 × 10⁴ to 1.82 × 10⁶ N/m, high resolutions of 1.51-10.0, and low limits of detection between 0.02 and 0.09 μg/mL. The separation efficiency and MS intensity are only slightly decreased over 60 runs or after usage for 15 days, showing excellent repeatability and stability of the PLOT@Au@CD column. The proposed method is successfully applied to the determination of amino acid enantiomers in vinegar samples with satisfactory accuracy. Our study provides a new approach for developing a chiral stationary phase in the chromatographic separation technique, which can be easily coupled to sensitive MS detection, thus it would be of value for various applications in the fields of chiral analysis.

Advances and applications of chiral resolution in pharmaceutical field

The attention to chiral drugs has been raised to an unprecedented level as drug discovery and development strategies grow rapidly. However, separation of enantiomers is still a huge task, which leads to an increasing significance to equip a wider range of expertise in chiral separation science to meet the current and future challenges. In the last few decades, remarkable progress of chiral resolution has been achieved. This review summarizes and classifies chiral resolution methods in analytical scale and preparative scale systematically and comprehensively, including crystallization-based method, inclusion complexation, chromatographic separation, capillary electrophoresis, kinetic resolution, liquid-liquid extraction, membrane-based separation, and especially one bold new progress based on chiral-induced spin selectivity theory. The advances and recent applications will be presented in detail, in which the contents may bring more thinking to wide-ranging readers in various professional fields, from analytical chemistry, pharmaceutical chemistry, natural medicinal chemistry, to manufacturing of drug production.

Separation of ofloxacin enantiomers by CE with fluorescence detection using DNA oligonucleotides as chiral selectors

This study used CE with fluorescence detection- and partial-filling mode-based method for chiral separation of ofloxacin. The DNA oligonucleotides with different base sequences were studied as potential chiral selectors including DNA tetrahedron, G-quadruplex, and G-riched double-strand DNA. Under the optimized conditions, all the DNA chiral selectors exhibited excellent chiral separation capabilities with a resolution higher than 1.5. The electrophoretic behavior of the ofloxacin enantiomer might result from the intermediate conjugate with different stabilities between chiral selectors and analytes by a combination of the hydrogen bond and spatial recognition structure. Moreover, satisfactory repeatability regarding run-to-run and interday repeatability was obtained, and all the RSD values of migration times and resolutions were below 4% (n = 6). Conclusively, both spatial structure and arrangement of the G bases potentiated the chiral separation capability of DNA for ofloxacin enantiomer. This work offered a stepping stone for enantioseparation using DNA as chiral selectors. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Supercritical Fluid Chromatography for Chiral Analysis, Part 1: Theoretical Background

The quantification of the enantiomers of racemic substances is of great importance in the development and regulation of pharmaceutical compounds. Active ingredients are often chiral; typically, only one of the stereoisomers has the desired pharmacokinetic and/or pharmacodynamic properties. Therefore, the stereoisomer distribution of chiral drug products must be characterized and evaluated during the drug discovery and development pipeline. Moreover, various chiral drugs present a stereoselective metabolism, highlighting the need for appropriate analytical strategies for the stereoselective analysis of metabolites, for example, in clinical and environmental studies. Due to its ease of use, robustness, and transferability, chiral liquid chromatography (LC) is the most common approach used in pharmaceutical analysis. Compared with LC, supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) allows higher linear flow velocities while maintaining high chromatographic efficiency, often enabling the reduction of analysis time. In addition, SFC provides enhanced or complementary chiral selectivity and avoids or reduces toxic solvents, such as those used in normal-phase LC. In the first part of this review article the theoretical advantages, technological developments, and common practices in chiral SFC are discussed. This will be followed by a contribution discussing recent applications in pharmaceutical, clinical, forensic, and environmental analysis.

Comparison of different chiral selectors for the enantiomeric determination of amphetamine-type substances in human urine by solid-phase extraction followed by capillary electrophoresis-tandem mass spectrometry

The present study develops a method for the enantioseparation of a group of amphetamines and their metabolites in urine by CE coupled to MS/MS (CE-MS/MS). Amphetamines present a chiral center and thus two enantiomers, which is important from a toxicological point of view because they may have different pharmacokinetic and pharmacological properties. It is therefore essential to find suitable methods to distinguish both enantiomers. Today the use of CE is becoming more important in this field since, with the simple addition of a chiral selector to the background electrolyte, the enantioseparation can easily be achieved. However, when CE is coupled to MS, the use of volatile chiral selectors and compatible background electrolytes or other strategies such as the countercurrent migration approach are required to avoid contamination of the ion source from nonvolatile species. In the present study, we use the latter strategy to evaluate six different chiral selectors using CE-MS/MS. As a sample pre-treatment, two cationic-exchange sorbents-Oasis WCX and Oasis MCX-are compared for the urine pre-treatment. Using this method, it was possible to achieve the complete chiral separation of the amphetamines under study with detection limits ranging between 0.8 and 1.5 ng/mL and method quantification limits between 2.0 and 8.0 ng/mL. Matrix-matched calibration curves up to 150 ng/mL were used to cover the usual concentration ranges at which amphetamines have generally been found in toxicological and forensic analyses.

Recent developments in capillary and microchip electroseparations of peptides (2019-mid 2021)

The review provides a comprehensive overview of developments and applications of high performance capillary and microchip electroseparation methods (zone electrophoresis, isotachophoresis, isoelectric focusing, affinity electrophoresis, electrokinetic chromatography, and electrochromatography) for analysis, microscale isolation, and physicochemical characterization of peptides from 2019 up to approximately the middle of 2021. Advances in the investigation of electromigration properties of peptides and in the methodology of their analysis, such as sample preparation, sorption suppression, EOF control, and detection, are presented. New developments in the individual CE and CEC methods are demonstrated and several types of their applications are shown. They include qualitative and quantitative analysis, determination in complex biomatrices, monitoring of chemical and enzymatic reactions and physicochemical changes, amino acid, sequence, and chiral analyses, and peptide mapping of proteins. In addition, micropreparative separations and determination of significant physicochemical parameters of peptides by CE and CEC methods are described.

Recent Advances in Chiral Analysis of Proteins and Peptides

Like many biological compounds, proteins are found primarily in their homochiral form. However, homochirality is not guaranteed throughout life. Determining their chiral proteinogenic sequence is a complex analytical challenge. This is because certain d-amino acids contained in proteins play a role in human health and disease. This is the case, for example, with d-Asp in elastin, β-amyloid and α-crystallin which, respectively, have an action on arteriosclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease and cataracts. Sequence-dependent and sequence-independent are the two strategies for detecting the presence and position of d-amino acids in proteins. These methods rely on enzymatic digestion by a site-specific enzyme and acid hydrolysis in a deuterium or tritium environment to limit the natural racemization of amino acids. In this review, chromatographic and electrophoretic techniques, such as LC, SFC, GC and CE, will be recently developed (2018–2020) for the enantioseparation of amino acids and peptides. For future work, the discovery and development of new chiral stationary phases and derivatization reagents could increase the resolution of chiral separations.

Chiral Capillary Electrokinetic Chromatography: Principle and Applications, Detection and Identification, Design of Experiment, and Exploration of Chiral Recognition Using Molecular Modeling

This work reviews the literature of chiral capillary electrokinetic chromatography from January 2016 to March 2021. This is done to explore the state-of-the-art approach and recent developments carried out in this field. The separation principle of the technique is described and supported with simple graphical illustrations, showing migration under normal and reversed polarity modes of the separation voltage. The most relevant applications of the technique for enantioseparation of drugs and other enantiomeric molecules in different fields using chiral selectors in single, dual, or multiple systems are highlighted. Measures to improve the detection sensitivity of chiral capillary electrokinetic chromatography with UV detector are discussed, and the alternative aspects are explored, besides special emphases to hyphenation compatibility to mass spectrometry. Partial filling and counter migration techniques are described. Indirect identification of the separated enantiomers and the determination of enantiomeric migration order are mentioned. The application of Quality by Design principles to facilitate method development, optimization, and validation is presented. The elucidation and explanation of chiral recognition in molecular bases are discussed with special focus on the role of molecular modeling.

The Use of Dual Cyclodextrin Chiral Selector Systems in the Enantioseparation of Pharmaceuticals by Capillary Electrophoresis: An Overview

Cyclodextrin (CD) derivatives are the most efficient and frequently used chiral selectors (CSs) in capillary electrophoresis (CE). There are situations when the use of a single CD as CS is not enough to obtain efficient chiral discrimination of the enantiomers; in these cases, sometimes this problem can be resolved using a dual CD system. The use of dual CD systems can often dramatically enhance enantioseparation selectivity and can be applied for the separation of many analytes of pharmaceutical interest for which enantioseparation by CE with another CS systems can be problematic. Usually in a dual CD system an anionic CD is used together with a neutral one, but there are situations when the use of a cationic CD with a neutral one or the use of two neutral CDs or even two ionized CDs can be an efficient solution. In the current review we present general aspects of the use of dual CD systems in the analysis of pharmaceutical substances. Several examples of applications of the use of dual CD systems in the analysis of pharmaceuticals are selected and discussed. Theoretical aspects regarding the separation of enantiomers through simultaneous interaction with the two CSs are also explained. Finally, advantages, disadvantages, potential and new direction in this chiral analysis field are highlighted.

Direct distinction of ibuprofen and flurbiprofen enantiomers by ion mobility mass spectrometry of their ternary complexes with metal cations and cyclodextrins in the gas phase

Enantiomeric drugs are widely used and play important roles in pharmaceuticals. Ion mobility spectrometry coupled with mass spectrometry technology provides a unique method for distinguishing the enantiomeric drugs, enantiomeric identification, and quantitation in the gas phase. In this study, enantiomeric molecules of ibuprofen and flurbiprofen were clearly recognized by forming host-guest complex ions using trapped ion mobility time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Ternary complex ions can be produced easily by electrospray ionization of the mixed solutions of ibuprofen, cyclodextrins, and CaCl₂ , LiCl, or NaCl, as well as flurbiprofen, cyclodextrins, and CaCl₂ . The relative contents of different chiral ibuprofens in a mixed solution were also quantitatively measured. This new method is a simple, effective, and a convenient enantioselective analysis method.