Quantitative In Silico Analysis of Retention of Phenylthiohydantoin-Amino Acids in Reversed-Phase Ion-Pair Liquid Chromatography

The retention mechanisms of phenylthiohydantoin (PTH)-amino acids in reversed-phase ion-pair liquid chromatography were quantitatively analyzed in silico. The most significant interaction for the retention was the Lewis acid-base interaction between an aromatic ring of a PTH-amino acid and a hydroxyl-group hydrogen of tetra-alkyl ammonium hydroxide. Solvent effects, addition of molecular interaction (MI) energy values between an analyte and solvent molecules, significantly improved the relationship between the MI energy values, calculated using a molecular mechanics program, and logk values, measured via chromatography. The correlation coefficient between the calculated MI energy values and the logk values was 0.98 (n = 19).

Computational prediction of diastereomeric separation behavior of fluorescent o-phthalaldehyde derivatives of amino acids

We have developed a convenient method for predicting the LC resolution of amino acid diastereomers through computational calculations. For acquiring experimental data, we derivatized 10 amino acids using o-phthalaldehyde and N-acetyl-L-cysteine as fluorogenic diastereomer-forming reagents and analyzed the diastereomers using reversed-phase LC and fluorescence detection. For theoretical chemical calculations, we used the publicly available semi-empirical calculation software MOPAC2012. Using the obtained experimental and theoretical data, we determined the change in analytical resolution with differences in the structure of the diastereomers. From the results obtained, we concluded that greater conformational change through diastereomeric derivatization induced an increase in the contact area with the stationary phase, leading to higher resolution.