Establishment and Application of an Automated Chiral Two-dimensional High Performance Liquid Chromatography Method for Bio-analysis of D-Acidic Amino Acids

Enantiomeric purity analysis of synthetic peptide therapeutics by direct chiral high-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry

The determination of chiral purity is critical to the evaluation of the quality of peptide pharmaceutical products. For synthetic peptides, the undesirable d-isomers can be introduced as impurities in amino acid starting materials and can also be formed during peptide synthesis and in some cases during product shelf life. A chiral high-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-MS/MS) method is described that facilitates rapid and accurate determination of amino acid chiral purity of a peptide. The peptide is hydrolyzed in deuterated acid to facilitate correction for any racemization occurring during this step of sample preparation, and the amino acids are subsequently separated by chiral chromatography interfaced with ESI-MS/MS for quantitation. The amino acid samples are analyzed directly following hydrolysis using high-low chromatography and extraction of selected ion response, providing efficiency and simplicity by avoiding the derivatization steps and multiple external standards required by traditional methodologies. GMP method validation feasibility is described for all nineteen chiral proteogenic amino acids. The practical application of the chiral HPLC-ESI-MS/MS method was demonstrated through the recovery of d-amino acid substitutions at each residue of an octapeptide across the 0.1-1.0 % range of interest. The method was applied to the analysis of four model peptides, each consisting of 8-14 amino acid residues, and the results were comparable to those provided by traditional testing methods.

Enantioselective metabolomics by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry

Metabolomics strives to capture the entirety of the metabolites in a biological system by comprehensive analysis, often by liquid chromatography hyphenated to mass spectrometry. A particular challenge thereby is the differentiation of structural isomers. Common achiral targeted and untargeted assays do not distinguish between enantiomers. This may lead to information loss. An increasing number of publications demonstrate that the enantiomeric ratio of certain metabolites can be meaningful biomarkers of certain diseases emphasizing the importance of introducing enantioselective analytical procedures in metabolomics. In this work, the state-of-the-art in the field of LC-MS based metabolomics is summarized with focus on developments in the recent decade. Methodologies, tagging strategies, workflows and general concepts are outlined. Selected biological applications in which enantioselective metabolomics has documented its usefulness are briefly discussed. In general, targeted enantioselective metabolomics assays are often based on a direct approach using chiral stationary phases (CSP) with polysaccharide derivatives, macrocyclic antibiotics, chiral crown ethers, chiral ion exchangers, donor-acceptor phases as chiral selectors. Rarely, these targeted assays focus on more than 20 analytes and usually are restricted to a certain metabolite class. In a variety of cases, pre-column derivatization of metabolites has been performed, especially for amino acids, to improve separation and detection sensitivity. Triple quadrupole instruments are the detection methods of first choice in targeted assays. Here, issues like matrix effect, absence of blank matrix impair accuracy of results. In selected applications, multiple heart cutting 2D-LC (RP followed by chiral separation) has been pursued to overcome this problem and alleviate bias due to interferences. Non-targeted assays, on the other hand, are based on indirect approach involving tagging with a chiral derivatizing agent (CDA). Besides classical CDAs numerous innovative reagents and workflows have been proposed and are discussed. Thereby, a critical issue for the accuracy is often neglected, viz. the validation of the enantiomeric impurity in the CDA. The majority of applications focus on amino acids, hydroxy acids, oxidized fatty acids and oxylipins. Some potential clinical applications are highlighted.

Determination of l-norvaline and l-tryptophan in dietary supplements by nano-LC using an O-[2-(methacryloyloxy)-ethylcarbamoyl]-10,11-dihydroquinidine-silica hybrid monolithic column

An analytical methodology based on an O-[2-(methacryloyloxy)-ethylcarbamoyl]-10,11-dihydroquinidine (MQD)-silica hybrid monolithic column was developed for the enantioseparation of 9-fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl (FMOC) derivatized amino acids by nano-liquid chromatography. The mobile phase was optimized including the apparent pH, content of ACN, and concentration of the buffer to obtain a satisfactory enantioresolution performance. 27 FMOC derivatized amino acids including 19 protein and 8 non-protein amino acids were tested, and 19 out of them were enantiomerically discriminated obtaining baseline separation for 11 of them. Analytical characteristics of the method were evaluated for norvaline and tryptophan in terms of linearity, precision, accuracy, limits of detection (LOD) and quantitation (LOQ) showing good performance to be applied to the enantiomeric determination of these amino acids in dietary supplements. LOD and LOQ values were 9.3 and 31 μM for norvaline enantiomers and 7.5 and 25 μM for tryptophan enantiomers, respectively. The contents of d-norvaline and d-tryptophan were below their respective LODs in all the analyzed samples. Quantitation of l-tryptophan and l-norvaline showed good agreement with the labeled contents except for one sample which did not show presence of l-norvaline, contrary to the label indication.

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A method was developed for the enantiomeric separation of amino acids by nano-LC.

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A novel quinidine-silica hybrid monolith was employed as chiral column.

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19 protein and non-protein FMOC-amino acids were enantiomerically discriminated.

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Analytical characteristics of the developed method were evaluated.

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Norvaline and tryptophan were enantiomerically determined in dietary supplements.

An insight into chiral monolithic stationary phases for enantioselective high-performance liquid chromatography applications

In this review, three main classes of chiral monolithic stationary phases, namely silica-, organic polymer-, and hybrid-based monolithic stationary phases, are covered. Their preparations, applications, and advantages compared with the conventional-packed and open-tubular capillary columns are discussed. A detailed description of the different types and techniques used for the introduction of chiral selectors into the monolithic matrices such as immobilization, functionalization, coating, encapsulation, and bonding. Special emphasis is given to the recent developments of chiral selectors in HPLC monolithic stationary phases during the past 18 years.