High-Performance Liquid Chromatographic Determination of Penicillins following Derivatization to Mercury-Stabilized Penicillenic Acids

Determination of piperacillin and mezlocillin in human serum and urine by high-performance liquid chromatography after derivatisation with 1,2,4-triazole

High-performance liquid chromatographic methods have been developed for the determination of piperacillin and mezlocillin in human serum and urine samples. The methods involve ultrafiltration of samples followed by reaction with 1.5 M 1, 2, 4-triazole and 0.5 x 10(-3) M mercury (II) chloride in solution (pH 8.50) at 50 degrees C for 15 min. The resulting products were separated on a C18 column following stabilisation in an eluent containing sodium thiosulphate. They were detected at 323 nm for both penicillins. The methods have been applied to assays applied to assays of these penicillins in human serum and urine samples. The procedures, which permit the determination of penicillin concentration down to 0.1 microgram m1-1 in serum and 1 microgram m1-1 in urine samples, are specific to intact penicillins without interference from corresponding penicilloates [see J. Haginaka et al., Anal. Sci. 1 (1985) 73]. At concentrations of 1-500 micrograms ml-1 for each compound, the within- and between-day precisions were 1.8-4.8 and 3.7-6.9, respectively. The accuracy was ca. 100% for all samples assayed.

Chromatographic methods of analysis for penicillins in food-animal tissues and their significance in regulatory programs for residue reduction and avoidance

Chromatographic methods for penicillin analysis in animal tissues play a significant role in the regulation of the use of these drugs in livestock production. Regulatory agencies rely on data generated from these methods to establish withdrawal times and to determine whether presumptive positive tissue samples from slaughtered animals intended for human consumption contain violative levels of penicillins to necessitate regulatory action. The need to develop sensitive, accurate, and reliable methods to support regulatory programs is examined together with emerging techniques that could be taken advantage of to improve the sensitivity and usefulness of current chromatographic methods for tomorrow's regulatory agency.

Hydrophobicity of beta-lactam antibiotics. Explanation and prediction of their behaviour in various partitioning solvent systems and reversed-phase chromatography

beta-Lactam antibiotics tend to undergo self-association in hydrophilic organic solvents, which leads to a strong dependence of their experimentally observable log P values on the partitioning conditions. As a result, most of the earlier obtained log P values for beta-lactam antibiotics cannot be applied as a common hydrophobicity measure, but they proved to be linearly related to each other and to a large body of reversed-phase chromatographic data. The retention of cephalosporins on reversed-phase liquid chromatographic columns is complicated by silanophilic interactions. However, under elution conditions that eliminate these silanophilic interactions, good correlations with log P data are observed, and a unified hydrophobicity scale for 90 penicillin and cephalosporin compounds could be evaluated. The Hansch and Leo additive scheme was shown to be valid for the calculation of hydrophobicities for penicillin and cephalosporin C-6(7) substituents, but it failed when applied to the prediction of cephalosporin C-3-substituent hydrophobicities. The hydrophobic increments for the sixteen most common cephalosporin C-3-substituents were empirically evaluated from literature data, and a simple equation was derived for an overall beta-lactam antibiotic hydrophobicity calculation. The proposed scale is valid for predicting the partitioning of most beta-lactam antibiotics in both hydrophilic and lipophilic organic-water systems, although it should be used with caution when applied to antibiotics containing additionally charged side-chains.

A reversed phase liquid chromatographic method for the simultaneous determination of several common penicillins in human serum

A rapid and sensitive high performance liquid chromatographic method is described for the simultaneous determination of benzylpenicillin, ampicillin, phenoxymethylpenicillin, cloxacillin, dicloxacillin and nafcillin in small samples of human serum. The chromatographic system involves the use of a Spherisorb ODS reversed phase column and a gradient elution with 1 mM ammonium acetate buffer/acetonitrile (from 90:10 to 75:25 in 15 min). Detection and quantification are monitored by UV absorption at 208 nm. The compounds are extracted with dichloromethane, using tetrabutylammonium hydrogen sulfate neutralized with sodium hydroxide and buffered with borate as an ion pairing reagent; beta-hydroxyethyltheophylline is added as an internal standard. Our results show that the method is accurate and reproducible, allowing quantification of serum levels of assayed penicillins (0.5-50 micrograms/mL) without interference from other drugs commonly used in therapy. Recoveries were generally greater than 79.4%.

Precolumn derivatization technique for high-performance liquid chromatographic determination of penicillins with fluorescence detection

A precolumn derivatization method was developed for the high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) determination of penicillins using fluorescence detection. Penicillins were derivatized by a two-step reaction, the beta-lactam ring being opened by hydrolysis in aqueous sodium carbonate solution in the first step to give a secondary amine functionality, and the secondary amino group being reacted with 7-fluoro-4-nitrobenzo-2-oxa-1,3-diazole in the second step to give a fluorescent derivative. The resulting reaction mixture was injected directly onto a reversed-phase column and analysed by HPLC. At a penicillin concentration of 10 micrograms/ml, the precision (relative standard deviation) ranged from 1.49 to 2.20%. In the concentration range 0.2-100 micrograms/ml, a linear response was observed. The detection limits of this method were 30-85 ng/ml for five different penicillins at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3:1. The proposed method was applied to the determination of penicillins added to serum following pretreatment by deproteinization and removal of compounds containing amino functionalities with a cation-exchange resin.

Basic extraction studies of benzylpenicillin and its determination by liquid chromatography with pre-column derivatisation

In order to develop a sensitive and precise chemical bioanalysis of benzylpenicillin in biological fluids, basic studies on benzylpenicillin are presented. These studies include pH dependent stability, extraction in aqueous ethylacetate systems in different pH and buffer compositions. A pre-column derivatisation LC method for the detection of benzylpenicillin also is described. The derivatisation of the sample is performed by the beta-lactam ring specific formation of the mercuric(II)mercaptide of the penicillenic acid in the presence of imidazole. The UV spectral properties of the derivative are utilised for detection. The chromatographic conditions are optimised with reference to the pH, the methanol, the imidazole and the mercury(II)chloride content of the mobile phase as well as the column temperature.

Liquid chromatographic determination of penicillins by postcolumn alkaline degradation using a hollow-fiber membrane reactor

A high-performance liquid chromatographic method using a hollow-fiber membrane reactor is described for the determination of penicillins. This method involves separation of penicillins on a C18 column, postcolumn reaction with sodium hydroxide and mercury (II) chloride introduced into the main flow stream using sulfonated hollow-fiber membrane reactors immersed in each solution (4 M sodium hydroxide and 3 X 10(-2) M mercury (II) chloride plus 10(-2) M nitric acid), and detection at 290 nm based on the uv absorbance of the degradation products. At penicillin concentrations of 5 micrograms/ml, within- and between-run precisions (relative standard deviation) were 0.24-2.39 and 1.19-4.13%, respectively. The detection limits of the proposed method were 1-5 ng at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3. The method was applied to assays of ampicillin and its metabolites in human serum and urine.

Penicillins and cephalosporins. Physicochemical properties and analysis in pharmaceutical and biological matrices

Penicillins and cephalosporins belong to the most prescribed antibiotics. Despite the relatively extended knowledge of these drugs, the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the compounds still gives rise to many problems. These difficulties are due to the chemical instability of the common beta-lactam nucleus, the minor differences in chemical structures between the analogues, and the complex and relatively fast degradation of the compounds in aqueous solutions. In this review a compilation of the physicochemical properties, the degradation routes and methods for analysis of these substances in biological and other matrices is presented.

High-performance liquid chromatographic identification of beta-lactam antibiotics produced by dermatophytes

Thirteen of 48 dermatophyte isolates were found by bioassay to produce beta-lactam antibiotics and seven produced other antibiotics. Estimation and detection of specific beta-lactams in culture broths by derivatization and HPLC was only possible following concentration and extraction procedures. Analysis of the concentrated broths demonstrated the production of penicillin X and penicillin G by two Trichophyton mentagrophytes strains and by one Microsporum canis strain; one further T. mentagrophytes strain produced only penicillin X. Additions of the beta-lactam side-chain precursors, phenylacetic acid and phenoxyacetic acid, to fermentation media failed to increase the antibiotic titres.