A porous layer open-tubular capillary column supported with pepsin and zeolitic imidazolate framework for enantioseparation of four basic drugs in capillary electrochromatography

Antimalarial analysis of pharmaceutical formulations and biological samples by capillary electrophoresis: the state of the art and applications

Malaria is a serious public health problem, being an endemic disease in 84 countries, mainly in Africa. This review explores the application of capillary electrophoresis (CE) techniques for analyzing antimalarial drugs, highlighting methods from 2000 to 2023 for the analysis of pharmaceutical formulations and human biological samples. The versatility, selectivity, high efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and high analytical frequency of CE techniques have become attractive choices for pharmaceutical analysis, focusing on quality control and impurity analysis applications. The evolution of achiral and chiral electromigration methods has been described based on the features of each mode of separation: capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE), micellar electrokinetic chromatography, microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography, and capillary electrochromatography. As expected, CZE is reported in most articles owing to its compatibility with drug properties and separation mode. However, it is necessary to perform other separation modes for a few drugs that are present in neutral form. After exhaustive research using different databases and statistical analyses, 27 articles using CE techniques for antimalarial drug analysis were found and are mentioned in this review.

Chiral hydroxyl-controlled covalent organic framework-modified stationary phase for chromatographic enantioseparation

Chiral covalent organic frameworks (CCOFs) possess a superior chiral recognition environment, abundant pore configuration, and favorable physicochemical stability. In the post-synthetic chiral modification of COFs, research usually focused on increasing the density of chiral sites as much as possible, and little attention has been paid to the influence of the density of chiral sites on the spatial structure and chiral separation performance of CCOFs. In this article, 1,3,5-tris(4-aminophenyl) benzene (TPB), 2,5-dihydroxyterephthalaldehyde (DHTP), and 2,5-dimethoxyterephthalaldehyde (DMTP) served as the platform molecules to directly establish hydroxyl-controlled COFs through Schiff base condensation reactions. Then the novel chiral selectors 6-deoxy-6-[1-(2-aminoethyl)-3-(4-(4-isocyanatobenzyl)phenyl)urea]-β-cyclodextrin (UB-β-CD) were pended into the micropore structures of COFs via covalent bond for further construction the [UB-β-CD]x-TPB-DMTP COFs (x represents the density of chiral sites). The chiral sites density on [UB-β-CD]x-TPB-DMTP COFs was regulated by changing the construction proportion of DHTP to obtain a satisfactory CCOFs and significantly improve the ability of chiral separation. [UB-β-CD]x-TPB-DMTP COFs were coated on the inner wall of a capillary via a covalently bonding strategy. The prepared open tubular capillary exhibited strong and broad enantioselectivity toward a variety of chiral analytes, including sixteen racemic amino acids and six model chiral drugs. By comparing the outcomes of chromatographic separation, we observed that the density of chiral sites in CCOFs was not positively correlated with their enantiomeric separation performance. The mechanism of chiral recognition [UB-β-CD]x-TPB-DMTP COFs were further demonstrated by molecular docking simulation. This study not only introduces a new high-efficiency member of the COFs-based CSPs family but also demonstrates the enantioseparation potential of CCOFs constructed with traditional post-synthetic modification (PSM) strategy by utilizing the inherent characteristics of porous organic frameworks.

Recent developments in electromigration techniques related to pharmaceutical and biomedical analysis - A review

The analysis of pharmaceutical compounds is an important research topic as the use of different drugs affects people's daily life for the treatment of diseases. In addition to the widespread use of the internet, counterfeit drugs have appeared in the market. The development of modern analytical techniques, reliable, precise, sensitive, and rapid methods, has provided powerful means of analysis used in various fields such as drug production, quality control, determination of impurities and/or metabolites, biochemistry, pharmacokinetics, etc. Analytical techniques so far used in the pharmaceutical analysis include high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), gas chromatography (GC), super/sub-critical fluid chromatography (SFC), and capillary electromigration techniques such as capillary electrophoresis (CE) and rather rarely capillary electrochromatography (CEC). CE has some advantages over other techniques, e.g., very high efficiency, reduced costs (use of minute volumes of solvents and samples), the possibility to use different separation mechanisms, etc. In this review paper, the main features and limitations of the capillary electromigration techniques (especially CE) are discussed. Some selected applications of CE to the analysis of pharmaceutical compounds published in the period 2021-2023 (May) are reported.

A cooperation tale of biomolecules and nanomaterials in nanoscale chiral sensing and separation

The cooperative relationship between biomolecules and nanomaterials makes up a beautiful tale about nanoscale chiral sensing and separation. Biomolecules are considered a fabulous chirality 'donor' to develop chiral sensors and separation systems. Nature has endowed biomolecules with mysterious chirality. Various nanomaterials with specific physicochemical attributes can realize the transmission and amplification of this chirality. We focus on highlighting the advantages of combining biomolecules and nanomaterials in nanoscale chirality. To enhance the sensors' detection sensitivity, novel cooperation approaches between nanomaterials and biomolecules have attracted tremendous attention. Moreover, innovative biomolecule-based nanocomposites possess great importance in developing chiral separation systems with improved assay performance. This review describes the formation of a network based on nanomaterials and biomolecules mainly including DNA, proteins, peptides, amino acids, and polysaccharides. We hope this tale will record the perpetual relation between biomolecules and nanomaterials in nanoscale chirality.

Lipase-based MIL-100(Fe) biocomposites as chiral stationary phase for high-efficiency capillary electrochromatographic enantioseparation

A novel chiral porous column was fabricated by lipase immobilized MIL-100(Fe) biocomposites as chiral stationary phase through covalent coupling and applied to capillary electrochromatographic enantioseparation. MOF-based lipase biocomposites not only enhance stereoselective activities but also improve the stability and applicability of the enzyme. The functionalized porous columns were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and powder X-ray diffraction. The performance of the porous column was evaluated by enantioseparating amino acid enantiomers, affording high resolution over 2.0. Besides, the enantio-resolutions of phenylephrine, phenylsuccinic acid, chloroquine, and zopiclone were also greater than 2.0. The relative standard deviations of run-to-run, intra-, and inter-day repeatability were within 4.0% in terms of resolution and retention time, exhibiting excellent stability of the column. Conceivably, the results show that MOF-based lipase composites as chiral stationary phase offer a highly efficient means for enantioseparation in capillary electrochromatography, attributing to the enhanced enantioselective activities of lipase by highly ordered frameworks.

Recent applications and chiral separation developments based on stationary phases in open tubular capillary electrochromatography (2019–2022)

Capillary electrochromatography (CEC) plays a significant role in chiral separation via the double separation principle, partition coefficient difference between the two phases, and electroosmotic flow-driven separation. Given the distinct properties of the inner wall stationary phase (SP), the separation ability of each SP differs from one another. Particularly, it provides large room for promising applications of open tubular capillary electrochromatography (OT-CEC). We divided the OT-CEC SPs developed over the past four years into six types: ionic liquids, nanoparticle materials, microporous materials, biomaterials, non-nanopolymers, and others, to mainly introduce their characteristics in chiral drug separation. There also added a few classic SPs that occurred within ten years as supplements to enrich the features of each SP. Additionally, we discuss their applications in metabolomics, food, cosmetics, environment, and biology as analytes in addition to chiral drugs. OT-CEC plays an increasingly significant role in chiral separation and may promote the development of capillary electrophoresis (CE) combined with other instruments in recent years, such as CE with mass spectrometry (CE/MS) and CE with ultraviolet light detector (CE/UV).

Progress in Chiral Stationary Phases Based on Proteins and Glycoproteins

A lot of chiral stationary phases (CSPs) have been introduced for the purpose of analytical and preparative separations of enantiomers. CSPs based on proteins and glycoproteins have unique properties among those CSPs. This review article deals with the preparation of CSPs based on proteins and glycoproteins, their chiral recognition properties and mechanisms, focusing on the CSPs investigated in our group. The dealt proteins and glycoproteins are including bovine serum albumin, human serum albumin, lysozyme, pepsin, human α₁-acid glycoprotein (AGP), chicken ovomucoid and chicken ovoglycoprotein (named chicken AGP).

Sensitivity enhancement in capillary electrophoresis and their applications for analyses of pharmaceutical and related biochemical substances

This review aims to illustrate sensitivity enhancement methods in capillary electrophoresis (CE) and their applications for pharmaceutical and related biochemical substance analyses. The first two parts of the article describe the introduction and principle of CE. The main part focuses on strategies for sensitivity improvement in CE including detector and capillary technologies and pre-concentration techniques. Applications of these techniques for pharmaceutical and biomedical substance analyses are surveyed during the years 2018-2021. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of homochiral zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 supported open-tubular column by miniaturized capillary electrochromatography with amperometric detection

A novel kind of chiral open-tubular (OT) column was established with homochiral zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 nanomaterials using L-histidine as the chiral carbon center (L-His-ZIF-8). The morphologies of L-His-ZIF-8 nanoparticles and chiral OT column were characterized by scanning electron microscopy. The effects of L-His-ZIF-8 concentrations, pH values, and concentrations of the running buffer on the resolution of the selected chiral compounds were investigated based on miniaturized capillary electrochromatography with amperometric detection system (mini-CEC-AD), respectively. The separation performances of the prepared L-His-ZIF-8@OT chiral columns were explored under the optimal conditions, and the RSDs of run-to-run, day-to-day, and column-to-column reproducibility were less than 6.7% using salbutamol raceme as the model enantiomers. The prepared chiral OT columns have been successfully applied to the enantioseparation of one pair of amino acid enantiomers, two pairs of racemic drugs, and three pairs of neurotransmitter enantiomers. Under the optimum conditions, the prepared OT columns were applied to real-world sample analysis of salbutamol aerosol. The limits of detection of salbutamol raceme were 0.90 μg·mL-1 (S/N = 3), and the recovery was 80.4-82.7%. The assay results indicated that this kind of chiral OT column modified with homochiral L-His-ZIF-8 possesses good reproducibility and stability. This developed mini-OT-CEC-AD system has some attractive characteristics of sensitivity and low cost, providing a potential way for the separation of chiral compounds.