Determination of ambroxol in dog plasma by high-performance liquid chromatography and UV detection

Summary A new sensitive HPLC-UV method has been developed and validated for the determination of amboroxol in dog plasma enabling the investigation of a newly developed 75 mg ambroxol-containing retard capsule of EGIS Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Budapest, Hungary. A gradient method was used for removing the longer retained plasma components of no interest. The separation was performed on a BDS Hypersil C18 (5 μm, 250×2.1 mm) analytical column, supplied with a 10 mm guard column containing the same packing material. The detection was performed at 210 nm. The calibration curve was linear in the range 25–2000 ng·mL⁻¹. Nerisopam (EGIS-6775) was used as internal standard. Presented at Balaton Symposium on High Performance Separation Methods, Siófok, Hungary, September 1–3, 1999     

Review of online coupling of sample preparation techniques with liquid chromatography

Sample preparation is still considered as the bottleneck of the whole analytical procedure, and efforts has been conducted towards the automation, improvement of sensitivity and accuracy, and low comsuption of organic solvents. Development of online sample preparation techniques (SP) coupled with liquid chromatography (LC) is a promising way to achieve these goals, which has attracted great attention. This article reviews the recent advances on the online SP-LC techniques. Various online SP techniques have been described and summarized, including solid-phase-based extraction, liquid-phase-based extraction assisted with membrane, microwave assisted extraction, ultrasonic assisted extraction, accelerated solvent extraction and supercritical fluids extraction. Specially, the coupling approaches of online SP-LC systems and the corresponding interfaces have been discussed and reviewed in detail, such as online injector, autosampler combined with transport unit, desorption chamber and column switching. Typical applications of the online SP-LC techniques have been summarized. Then the problems and expected trends in this field are attempted to be discussed and proposed in order to encourage the further development of online SP-LC techniques.     

Comparison of mouse plasma and brain tissue homogenate sample pretreatment methods prior to high‐performance liquid chromatography for a new 1,2,4‐triazole derivative with anticonvulsant activity

The focus of the study was to develop a bio‐analytical assay for a 1,2,4‐triazole derivative from plasma and brain tissue homogenate samples. The goal was to compare analytical techniques that facilitate high accuracy with simplified sample processing. In this study, commonly used standard protein precipitation and solid‐phase extraction methods utilizing C₁₈ and cartridges of Hybrid technology were compared in terms of their ability for sample pretreatment and removal of biological matrices before high‐performance liquid chromatography quantification. Fast classical reversed‐phase chromatography on a C₁₈ column paired with selective sample preparation using Hybrid solid‐phase extraction technology resulted in the most precise bio‐analytical determination of the hydrophobic 1,2,4‐triazole derivative in both biological samples studied. The obtained recovery values were above 95% with the coefficient of variation lower than 5%.     

Comparison of protein precipitation methods for sample preparation prior to proteomic analysis

Protein samples should be free of salt and other disturbing agents and have an appropriate concentration to be suitable for two-dimensional (2D) electrophoresis, the principal step of proteomics. To find the most efficient method for sample preparation, we used human plasma and compared four widely applied precipitation methods, using trichloroacetic acid (TCA), acetone, chloroform/methanol and ammonium sulfate, as well as ultrafiltration. Precipitation with TCA and acetone and ultrafiltration resulted in an efficient sample concentration and desalting. We also found that ammonium sulfate fractionation can efficiently remove albumin, which represents more than 50% of plasma proteins.     

Rapid clean-up and effective sample preparation procedure for unambiguous determination of the cyclic peptides microcystin and nodularin

Summary A new sample preparation strategy has been established to improve the identification and determination of nodularin and microcystins. The sample preparation consisted of enrichment of the analytes by solid phase extraction with C18 cartridges followed by clean-up of the enriched raw extracts by high performance size exclusion gel permeation chromatography. In contrast to established clean-up procedures based on polarity, related distribution of microcystins and nodularin in non-miscible phases (e. g. a C18 cartridge as stationary phase and a water-containing eluent as mobile phase) this strategy separates microcystins from interfering compounds by molecular size differences. The sample preparation procedure can be automated easily and was validated for both water samples as well as raw extracts of algal cells. The method was success-fully applied during an experiment with natural algae communities from the Baltic Sea to investigate the influence of different nutrient limitations on toxicity ofNodularia sp...     

Alternative sample preparation prior to two-dimensional electrophoresis protein analysis on solid lipid nanoparticles

The proteins adsorbing onto the surface of intravenously injected drug carriers are regarded as a key factor determining the organ distribution. Depending on the particle surface properties, certain proteins will be preferentially adsorbed, leading to the adherence of the particle to cells with the appropriate receptor. Therefore, the knowledge of the protein adsorption pattern and the correlation to in vivo behavior opens the perspective for the development of intravenous colloidal carriers for drug targeting. After incubation in plasma, the adsorbed proteins were analyzed using two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresesis (2-D PAGE, 2-DE). The purpose of the present study was to develop an alternative separation method to separate solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) carriers from plasma by gel filtration prior to 2-D PAGE. Via the specific absorption coefficients and a two-equation system, elution fractions were identified being practically plasma-free. This allows protein analysis on SLN which are typically in density too close to the density value of water to be separated by the standard centrifugation method. The SLN used for establishing the gel filtration were prepared in a way that they had a sufficiently low density to be additionally separated by centrifugation. The adsorption patterns obtained after separation with both methods were qualitatively and quantitatively identical, showing the suitability of the gel filtration.     

Bioanalysis of bevacizumab and infliximab by high-temperature reversed-phase liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection after immunoaffinity magnetic purification

This study presents two simple and rapid methods for the quantification of therapeutic mAbs based on LC. Two mAbs (bevacizumab and infliximab) in plasma samples were purified using magnetic beads immobilized with a commercially-available idiotype antibody for each mAb. Purified mAbs were separated with HT-RPLC and detected with their native fluorescence. Using immunoaffinity beads, each mAb was selectively purified and detected as a single peak in the chromatogram. The HT-RPLC achieved good separation for the mAbs with sharp peaks within 20 min. The calibration curves of the two mAbs ranged from 1 to 20 μg mL⁻¹ (bevacizumab) and 1–10 μg mL⁻¹ (infliximab), and they had strong correlation coefficients (r² > 0.998). The LOD of bevacizumab and infliximab was 0.07 and 0.15 μg mL⁻¹, and the LLOQ of bevacizumab and infliximab was 0.12 and 0.25 μg mL⁻¹, respectively. Thus, the sensitivities were sufficient for clinical analysis. Immunoaffinity purification with HT-RPLC produced a selective and accurate bioanalysis without an LC-MS/MS instrument. Both methods could become general-purpose analytical methods and complement the results obtained with conventional LBA.     

Novel immunoassay and rapid immunoaffinity chromatography method for the detection and selective extraction of naringin in Citrus aurantium

In this work, a novel monoclonal antibody specific for naringin was prepared and characterized. Subsequently, an indirect competitive enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay for naringin was developed, with an effective range from 4.8 to 156 ng/mL naringin. Next, an immunoaffinity column was obtained by coupling anti‐naringin monoclonal antibodies to CNBr‐activated Sepharose 4B and a rapid immunoaffinity chromatography assay for naringin was developed. The immunoaffinity column was used to separate naringin from Citrus aurantium. The results showed that 1 g of the dry Sepharose 4B can couple 10 mg of immunoglobulin G. And the immunoaffinity column can efficiently and specifically capture approximately 250 μg of naringin without cross reacting with its structurally similar compounds. Moreover, our results indicate that the application of immunoaffinity chromatography can simplify the pretreatment and the isolation process greatly compared to conventional methods, providing a potential method for extracting the target component from structurally similar compounds in natural products.     

Review: Sample preparation of catecholamines and biologically active peptides by solid phase extraction

This paper reviews solid phase extraction as applied to the sample preparation of catecholamines and biologically active peptides. The mechanisms used in solidphase extraction are: non-polar, polar, ion-exchange, and covalent.     

Magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer for the efficient and selective preconcentration of diazinon before its determination by high‐performance liquid chromatography

A molecularly imprinted polymer was selectively applied for solid‐phase extraction and diazinon residues enrichment before high‐performance liquid chromatography. Diazinon was thermally copolymerized with Fe₃O₄@polyethyleneglycol nanoparticles, methacrylic acid (functional monomer), 2‐hydroxyethyl methacrylate (co‐monomer), and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (cross‐linking monomer) in the presence of acetonitrile (porogen) and 2,2‐azobisisobutyronitrile (initiator). Then, the imprinted diazinon was reproducibly eluted with methanol/acetic acid (9:1, v/v). The sorbent particles were characterized by X‐ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. The comprehensive study of variables through experimental design showed that the maximum performance was achieved under these conditions: pH 7, 10 mL sample volume, 15 mg sorbent, 10 min vortex time, 5 min ultrasonic time, 200 μL methanol/acetic acid (9:1, v/v) as eluent, and 5 min desorption time. Under optimized conditions, the molecularly imprinted polymer solid‐phase extraction method demonstrated a linear range (0.02–5 g/mL), a correlation coefficient of 0.997, and 0.005 g/mL detection limit.     

Improvement of solid phase microextraction fiber assembly and interface for liquid chromatography

Modifications were made on commercial SPME fiber assembly and SPME–LC interface to improve the applicability of SPME for LC. Polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/C18 bonded fuse silica was used as the fiber coating for LC applications because the fiber coating was not swollen in common LC solvents at room temperature. The inner tubing of SPME fiber assembly was replaced with a 457 μm outside diameter (o.d.) solid nitinol rod. And the coated fiber (o.d. 290 μm) was installed onto the nitinol rod. The inner diameter (i.d.) of the through hole of the ferrule in the SPME–LC interface was enlarged to 508 μm to accommodate the nitinol rod. The much larger inner rod protected the fiber coating from being stripped when the fiber was withdrawn from the SPME–LC interface. The system was evaluated in term of pressure test, desorption optimization, peak shape, carryovers, linear range, precision, and limit of detection (LOD) with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) as the test analytes. The results demonstrated that the improved system was robust and reliable. It overcame the drawbacks, such as leak of solvents and damage of fiber coatings, associated with current SPME fibers and SPME–LC interface. Another sealing mechanism was proposed by sealing the nitinol rod with a specially designed poly(ether ether ketone) (PEEK) fitting. The device was fabricated and tested for manual use.     

Agarose‐ and alginate‐based biopolymers for sample preparation: Excellent green extraction tools for this century

Recently, there has been considerable interest in the use of miniaturized sample preparation techniques before the chromatographic monitoring of the analytes in unknown complex compositions. The use of biopolymer‐based sorbents in solid‐phase microextraction techniques has achieved a good reputation. A great variety of polysaccharides can be extracted from marine plants or microorganisms. Seaweeds are the major sources of polysaccharides such as alginate, agar, agarose, as well as carrageenans. Agarose and alginate (green biopolymers) have been manipulated for different microextraction approaches. The present review is focused on the classification of biopolymer and their applications in multidisciplinary research. Besides, efforts have been made to discuss the state‐of‐the‐art of the new microextraction techniques that utilize commercial biopolymer interfaces such as agarose in liquid‐phase microextraction and solid‐phase microextraction.     

Determination of flavor enhancers in milk powder by one‐step sample preparation and two‐dimensional liquid chromatography

Maltol, ethyl maltol, vanillin, and ethyl vanillin are important food additives as flavor enhancers. To quantify the four additives in milk powder, a novel 2D liquid chromatographic (2DLC) method was developed in this article. In such a 2DLC system, the target fractions eluted from the first dimensional column (C₄) are stored onto the trapping column (C₈) for subsequent analysis; after that, they were switched into the second dimensional column (C₁₈) by a two‐position six‐port switching valve. A one‐step sample preparation method was used prior to 2DLC chromatographic analysis, which was easy and convenient. After optimization of all experimental parameters, the new method was validated in terms of linearity, LODs, and LOQs, intra‐ and interday precision, and accuracy. A conventional single‐dimensional liquid chromatographic method was also proposed in this work for comparison. In order to evaluate the applicability of the new 2DLC method, five brands of commercial milk powder samples (n = 8) were analyzed. Vanillin and ethyl vanillin were detected in two samples, respectively. It is showed that the 2DLC method is effective in quality control programs of milk powder products.     

液液提取-固相萃取-气相色谱法测定牛肉中蝇毒磷残留量的研究

建立了液液提取-固相萃取-气相色谱火焰光度法(LLE-SPE-GC-FPD)测定牛肉中蝇毒磷的残留量.优化了气相色谱分离条件,研究了样品基质对蝇毒磷测定的影响,考察了Florisil固相萃取小柱和ODS固相萃取小柱的萃取效果,并选择乙酸乙酯为洗脱剂,考察了液-液提取和固相萃取的回收率.将该方法用于牛肉中蝇毒磷的测定,其检出限为0.02 μg/mL,回收率高于83%,相对标准偏差13.7%.使用气相色谱质谱仪(GC-MS)对样品中的蝇毒磷进行定性分析,其特征离子和相对丰度为362(100)、226(55)和210(40).     

Sample preparation for peptides and proteins in biological matrices prior to liquid chromatography and capillary zone electrophoresis

The determination of peptides and proteins in a biological matrix normally includes a sample-preparation step to obtain a sample that can be injected into a separation system in such a way that peptides and proteins of interest can be determined qualitatively and/or quantitatively. This can be a rather challenging, labourious and/or time-consuming process. The extract obtained after sample preparation is further separated using a compatible separation system. Liquid chromatography (LC) is the generally applied technique for this purpose, but capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) is an alternative, providing fast, versatile and efficient separations. In this review, the recent developments in the combination of sample-preparation procedures with LC and CZE, for the determination of peptides and proteins, will be discussed. Emphasis will be on purification from and determination in complex biological matrices (plasma, cell lysates, etc.) of these compounds and little attention will be paid to the proteomics area. Additional focus will be put on sample-preparation conditions, which can be hard or soft, and on selectivity issues. Selectivity issues will be addressed in combination with the used separation technique and a comparison between LC and CZE will be made.     

Production and characterization of polyclonal antibodies to sulfamethazine and their potential use in immunoaffinity chromatography for urine sample pre-treatment

An immunoaffinity chromatographic (IAC) method for isolating sulfamethazine (SMZ) from incurred urine samples was developed. This was achieved by (i) generating polyclonal antibodies that recognize equally well SMZ and its major urinary metabolites, (ii) evaluating in an ELISA procedure the influence of methanol, salt and pH on the antigen-antibody interaction in order to determine the optimum conditions for IAC and (iii) covalent coupling of the IgG fractions of anti-SMZ to CNBr activated Sepharose for the preparation of re-usable immunoaffinity columns, having a high capacity for SMZ (1900 ng SMZ mL-1 gel). For desorbing SMZ from the immunoaffinity column, different elution modes were evaluated, with 40% MeOH-0.1 mol L-1 HOAc-0.5 mol L-1 NaCl being the most efficient combination. Using the IAC column for processing SMZ spiked urine samples resulted in high recoveries, ranging from 92 to 100%. Because of the high cross-reactivity with the major metabolites of SMZ present in urine of treated animals, the antibodies show excellent properties for use in both IAC and ELISA. For the isolation and concentration of the parent drug and its major metabolites, the urine could be applied directly to the IAC column, without the time-consuming step of deconjugation. Moreover, the use of IAC prior to ELISA for the analysis of incurred urine samples showed good efficiency for the elimination of matrix interferences. Owing to the urine-tissue relationship, the urine concentrations can be used to predict the presence of the parent drug in tissues and so possible violations of the maximum residue limit (MRL) can be controlled.     

Multiresidue determination of UV filters in water samples by solid‐phase extraction and liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry analysis

UV filters, contained in sunscreens and other cosmetic products, as well as in some plastics and industrial products, are nowadays considered contaminants of emerging concern because their widespread and increasing use has lead to their presence in the environment. Furthermore, some UV filters are suspected to have endocrine disruption activity. In the present work, we developed an analytical method based on liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry for the determination of UV filters in tap and lake waters. Sixteen UV filters were extracted from water samples by solid‐phase extraction employing graphitized carbon black as adsorbent material. Handling 200 mL of water sample, satisfactory recoveries were obtained for almost all the analytes. The limits of detection and quantification of the method were comparable to those reported in other works, and ranged between 0.7–3.5 and 1.9–11.8 ng/L, respectively; however in our case the number of investigated compounds was larger. The major encountered problem in method development was to identify the background contamination sources and reduce their contribution. UV filters were not detected in tap water samples, whereas the analyses conducted on samples collected from three different lakes showed that the swimming areas are most subject to UV filter contamination.     

固相萃取/高效液相色谱荧光法测定水产品中苯并芘

采用Florisil固相萃取柱纯化样品,建立了高效液相色谱(HPLC)荧光法测定水产品中苯并(a)芘的方法.样品以正己烷为提取剂,净化、蒸发浓缩后用流动相溶解.荧光检测器激发波长297 nm,发射波长405 nm.流动相为V(乙腈):V(水)=75:25,流速1.0 mL/min,外标法定量.苯并(a)芘在0～200 ng/mL浓度范围内线性关系良好,相关系数r=0.99990;在5个空白样品中添加0.5μg/kg浓度水平的标准品,回收率在81.9%～89.5%之间,相对标准偏差为4.1%(n=5);日内、日间精密度分别为0.7%(n=5)、2.4%(n=3);最低检测限为90 ng/kg.     

Methylmercury and inorganic mercury determination in blood by using liquid chromatography with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and a fast sample preparation procedure

Despite the necessity to differentiate chemical species of mercury in clinical specimens, there are a limited number of methods for this purpose. Then, this paper describes a simple method for the determination of methylmercury and inorganic mercury in blood by using liquid chromatography with inductively coupled mass spectrometry (LC-ICP-MS) and a fast sample preparation procedure. Prior to analysis, blood (250 μL) is accurately weighed into 15-mL conical tubes. Then, an extractant solution containing mercaptoethanol, l-cysteine and HCl was added to the samples following sonication for 15 min. Quantitative mercury extraction was achieved with the proposed procedure. Separation of mercury species was accomplished in less than 5 min on a C18 reverse-phase column with a mobile phase containing 0.05% (v/v) mercaptoethanol, 0.4% (m/v) l-cysteine, 0.06 mol L⁻¹ ammonium acetate and 5% (v/v) methanol. The method detection limits were found to be 0.25 μg L⁻¹ and 0.1 μg L⁻¹ for inorganic mercury and methylmercury, respectively. Method accuracy is traceable to Standard Reference Material (SRM) 966 Toxic Metals in Bovine Blood from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The proposed method was also applied to the speciation of mercury in blood samples collected from fish-eating communities and from rats exposed to thimerosal. With the proposed method there is a considerable reduction of the time of sample preparation prior to speciation of Hg by LC-ICP-MS. Finally, after the application of the proposed method, we demonstrated an interesting in vivo ethylmercury conversion to inorganic mercury.     

Matrix removal in state of the art sample preparation methods for serum by charged aerosol detection and metabolomics-based LC-MS

Investigations into sample preparation procedures usually focus on analyte recovery with no information provided about the fate of other components of the sample (matrix). For many analyses, however, and particularly those using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), quantitative measurements are greatly influenced by sample matrix. Using the example of the drug amitriptyline and three of its metabolites in serum, we performed a comprehensive investigation of nine commonly used sample clean-up procedures in terms of their suitability for preparing serum samples. We were monitoring the undesired matrix compounds using a combination of charged aerosol detection (CAD), LC-CAD, and a metabolomics-based LC-MS/MS approach. In this way, we compared analyte recovery of protein precipitation-, liquid-liquid-, solid-phase- and hybrid solid-phase extraction methods. Although all methods provided acceptable recoveries, the highest recovery was obtained by protein precipitation with acetonitrile/formic acid (amitriptyline 113%, nortriptyline 92%, 10-hydroxyamitriptyline 89%, and amitriptyline N-oxide 96%). The quantification of matrix removal by LC-CAD showed that the solid phase extraction method (SPE) provided the lowest remaining matrix load (48–123 μg mL⁻¹), which is a 10–40 fold better matrix clean-up than the precipitation- or hybrid solid phase extraction methods. The metabolomics profiles of eleven compound classes, comprising 70 matrix compounds showed the trends of compound class removal for each sample preparation strategy. The collective data set of analyte recovery, matrix removal and matrix compound profile was used to assess the effectiveness of each sample preparation method. The best performance in matrix clean-up and practical handling of small sample volumes was showed by the SPE techniques, particularly HLB SPE. CAD proved to be an effective tool for revealing the considerable differences between the sample preparation methods. This detector can be used to follow matrix compound elution during chromatographic separations, and the facile monitoring of matrix signal can assist in avoiding unfavourable matrix effects on analyte quantification.