Capillary zone electrophoresis separation of low concentration stimulants in human urine with laser-induced fluorescence detection

Fluorescamine-based fluorophore for spectrofluorimetric determination of heptaminol in human plasma; application to spiked human plasma

An innovative approach to determine heptaminol spectrofluorimetrically was developed, determining the optimum conditions needed, then validated for determination of heptaminol in its pure form, its tablets and in spiked human plasma. The presented method is based on the reaction between fluorescamine reagent with the primary amine group found in heptaminol, using a borate buffer at pH 9.0 that yields a highly fluorescent product, fluorescence was measured at 471 nm after excitation at 393 nm. The linearity of the constructed calibration curve was (75-850 ng/ml) with LOD and LOQ values 23.85 and 72.29 ng/ml respectively. The method was validated following the International Council for Harmonisation (ICH) guidelines indicating good accuracy and precision. Finally, the presented approach was adapted for in vitro study of heptaminol in spiked human plasma with a mean percentage recovery 100.52 ± 1.19% as well as in its tablets with a mean percentage recovery 99.47 ± 1.25%.

Influences of urinary pH on the pharmacokinetics of three amphetamine-type stimulants using a new high-performance liquid chromatographic method

A simple and sensitive high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method after precolumn derivatization with 9,10-anthraquinone-2-sulfonyl chloride (ASC) has been developed and validated for the analysis of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) in biological samples. Based on this method, we investigated the impact of urinary pH on the pharmacokinetics of phenylpropanolamine (PPA), pseudoephedrine (PSE), and fenfluramine (FEN) in rats. The drugs were orally administrated to rats, which had been induced, by repeated oral doses of ammonium chloride or sodium bicarbonate, to excrete urine at lower or higher pH than the normal value, respectively. Results revealed that as the increase of urinary pH, the mean elimination half-life (t(1/2)), the mean residence time (MRT) and the area under the plasma concentration-time curve (AUC) of PPA, PSE, and FEN were greatly raised, while the total plasma clearance (CL/F) decreased considerably. These findings have important clinical implications.

Comparative study between a commercial and a homemade capillary electrophoresis instrument for the simultaneous determination of aminated compounds by induced fluorescence detection

The performance of two capillary electrophoresis (CE) instruments, one commercial and one homemade device, were compared for the determination of derivatised aminated compounds with fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC). The commercial CE system first uses an argon ion laser as excitation source; the homemade CE device uses an inexpensive blue-light-emitting diode (LED) as the light source and a charge-coupled device (CCD) as the detection system. After fine optimisation of several separation parameters in both devices, a co-electroosmotic flow CE methodology was achieved in coated capillary tubing with 0.001% hexadimetrine bromide (HDB), and 50 mmol L-1 sodium borate at pH 9.3 with 20% 2-propanol for the determination of several amines and aminoacids. Analytical performances, applicability in beer samples and other aspects such as cost or potential for miniaturization have been compared for both devices.