The review discusses the pitfalls of the matrix effect in mass spectrometry detection hyphenated to liquid chromatography separation. Matrix effect heavily influences both qualitative and ...quantitative analyses, giving rise to suppression or enhancement of the signal. As generally recognised, the predominant cause is the presence of undesired components that co-elute in the chromatographic separation and alter the ionisation process. The interfering species can be components of the sample, compounds released during the pre-treatment/extraction process or reagents added to the mobile phase to improve chromatographic resolution. The different mechanisms proposed in literature to explain the suppression or the enhancement of the signal both in electrospray and atmospheric pressure chemical ionisations are presented and the results observed in the different experimental conditions are compared and discussed. All data together lead to conclude that the chemical properties of the target analyte, the kind of matrix, the matrix to analyte concentration ratio, the extraction process, the chromatographic conditions as well as the kind of the mass spectrometry instrumentation and the ionisation conditions can play a role. Likely all these potential causes act in a synergic way and the final effect observed is hardly due to only one of them. Depending on an unpredictable combination of conditions, signal suppression or enhancement can be observed. The review discusses the matrix effects observed in HPLC–MS and HPLC–MS/MS analysis proposes hypotheses to explain the observed behaviours and proposes methods and strategies to overcome the matrix effects.
A new type of "Geländer" molecule based on a ortho-tetraphenylene core is presented. The central para-quaterphenyl backbone is wrapped by a 4,4'-di((Z)-styryl)-1,1'-biphenyl banister, with its aryl ...rings covalently attached to all four phenyl rings of the backbone. The resulting helical chiral bicyclic architecture consists exclusively of sp
-hybridized carbon atoms. The target structure was assembled by expanding the central ortho-tetraphenylene subunit with the required additional phenyl rings followed by a twofold macrocyclization. The first macrocyclization attempts based on a twofold McMurry coupling were successful but low yielding; the second strategy, profiting from olefin metathesis, provided satisfying yields. Hydrogenation of the olefins resulted in a saturated derivative of similar topology, thereby allowing the interdependence between saturation and physico-chemical properties to be studied. The target structures, including their solid-state structures, were fully characterized. The helical chiral bicycle was synthesized as a racemate and separated into pure enantiomers by HPLC on a chiral stationary phase. Comparison of recorded and simulated chiroptical properties allowed the enantiomers to be assigned.
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•A first of its kind review on use of experimental designs in HPLC method development and validation.•Deals with recent advances in mathematical modeling, screening and optimization ...designs.•Discusses various applications of chemometry in sample preparation, dissolution studies, stability-indicating assays.•Demonstrates complex multi component UPLC and LC–MS separations with improved reliability.•Describes the quality by design paradigm and the six sigma practices as quality indicators.
Chemometric approaches have been increasingly viewed as precious complements to high performance liquid chromatographic practices, since a large number of variables can be simultaneously controlled to achieve the desired separations. Moreover, their applications may efficiently identify and optimize the significant factors to accomplish competent results through limited experimental trials. The present manuscript discusses usefulness of various chemometric approaches in high and ultra performance liquid chromatography for (i) methods development from dissolution studies and sample preparation to detection, considering the progressive substitution of traditional detectors with tandem mass spectrometry instruments and the importance of stability indicating assays (ii) method validation through screening and optimization designs. Choice of appropriate types of experimental designs so as to either screen the most influential factors or optimize the selected factors’ combination and the mathematical models in chemometry have been briefly recalled and the advantages of chemometric approaches have been emphasized. The evolution of the design of experiments to the Quality by Design paradigm for method development has been reviewed and the Six Sigma practice as a quality indicator in chromatography has been explained. Chemometric applications and various strategies in chromatographic separations have been described.
The polymer polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is widely used to build microfluidic devices compatible with cell culture. Whilst convenient in manufacture, PDMS has the disadvantage that it can absorb small ...molecules such as drugs. In microfluidic devices like “Organs-on-Chip”, designed to examine cell behavior and test the effects of drugs, this might impact drug bioavailability. Here we developed an assay to compare the absorption of a test set of four cardiac drugs by PDMS based on measuring the residual non-absorbed compound by High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). We showed that absorption was variable and time dependent and not determined exclusively by hydrophobicity as claimed previously. We demonstrated that two commercially available lipophilic coatings and the presence of cells affected absorption. The use of lipophilic coatings may be useful in preventing small molecule absorption by PDMS.
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•Binding of different compounds to PDMS varies greatly.•Previous reported correlations of absorption and LogP values could not be repeated.•Topological polar surface area possibly related to compound absorption.•A lipid based coating partially obviates compound absorption.•Presence of cultured cells affects free drug concentration, but less than substrate.
•General introduction about core–shell particles.•Synthetic methods for core–shell silica particles, particularly for HPLC.•Fundamentals on why core–shell particles perform better in HPLC.•Comparison ...of core–shell particles, totally porous particles, and monoliths.•Wide applications of core–shell particles columns.
The challenges in HPLC are fast and efficient separation for a wide range of samples. Fast separation often results in very high operating pressure, which places a huge burden on HPLC instrumentation. In recent years, core–shell silica microspheres (with a solid core and a porous shell, also known as fused-core or superficially porous microspheres) have been widely investigated and used for highly efficient and fast separation with reasonably low pressure for separation of small molecules, large molecules and complex samples. In this review, we firstly show the types of core–shell particles and how they are generally prepared, focusing on the methods used to produce core–shell silica particles for chromatographic applications. The fundamentals are discussed on why core–shell particles can perform better with low back pressure, in terms of van Deemter equation and kinetic plots. The core–shell particles are compared with totally porous silica particles and also monolithic columns. The use of columns packed with core–shell particles in different types of liquid chromatography is then discussed, followed by illustrating example applications of such columns for separation of various types of samples. The review is completed with conclusion and a brief perspective on future development of core–shell particles in chromatography.
In modern analytical chemistry researchers pursue novel materials to meet analytical challenges such as improvements in sensitivity, selectivity, and detection limit. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) ...are an emerging class of microporous materials, and their unusual properties such as high surface area, good thermal stability, uniform structured nanoscale cavities, and the availability of in-pore functionality and outer-surface modification are attractive for diverse analytical applications. This Account summarizes our research on the analytical applications of MOFs ranging from sampling to chromatographic separation. MOFs have been either directly used or engineered to meet the demands of various analytical applications. Bulk MOFs with microsized crystals are convenient sorbents for direct application to in-field sampling and solid-phase extraction. Quartz tubes packed with MOF-5 have shown excellent stability, adsorption efficiency, and reproducibility for in-field sampling and trapping of atmospheric formaldehyde. The 2D copper(II) isonicotinate packed microcolumn has demonstrated large enhancement factors and good shape- and size-selectivity when applied to on-line solid-phase extraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in water samples. We have explored the molecular sieving effect of MOFs for the efficient enrichment of peptides with simultaneous exclusion of proteins from biological fluids. These results show promise for the future of MOFs in peptidomics research. Moreover, nanosized MOFs and engineered thin films of MOFs are promising materials as novel coatings for solid-phase microextraction. We have developed an in situ hydrothermal growth approach to fabricate thin films of MOF-199 on etched stainless steel wire for solid-phase microextraction of volatile benzene homologues with large enhancement factors and wide linearity. Their high thermal stability and easy-to-engineer nanocrystals make MOFs attractive as new stationary phases to fabricate MOF-coated capillaries for high-resolution gas chromatography (GC). We have explored a dynamic coating approach to fabricate a MOF-coated capillary for the GC separation of important raw chemicals and persistent organic pollutants with high resolution and excellent selectivity. We have combined a MOF-coated fiber for solid-phase microextraction with a MOF-coated capillary for GC separation, which provides an effective MOF-based tandem molecular sieve platform for selective microextraction and high-resolution GC separation of target analytes in complex samples. Microsized MOFs with good solvent stability are attractive stationary phases for high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). These materials have shown high resolution and good selectivity and reproducibility in both the normal-phase HPLC separation of fullerenes and substituted aromatics on MIL-101 packed columns and position isomers on a MIL-53(Al) packed column and the reversed-phase HPLC separation of a wide range of analytes from nonpolar to polar and acidic to basic solutes. Despite the above achievements, further exploration of MOFs in analytical chemistry is needed. Especially, analytical application-oriented engineering of MOFs is imperative for specific applications.
Recent developments in chromatographic supports and instrumentation for liquid chromatography (LC) are enabling rapid and highly efficient separations. Various analytical strategies have been ...proposed, for example the use of silica-based monolithic supports, elevated mobile phase temperatures, and columns packed with sub-3 μm superficially porous particles (fused core) or with sub-2 μm porous particles for use in ultra-high-pressure LC (UHPLC). The purpose of this review is to describe and compare these approaches in terms of throughput and resolving power, using kinetic data gathered for compounds with molecular weights ranging between 200 and 1300 g mol
−1
in isocratic and gradient modes. This study demonstrates that the best analytical strategy should be selected on the basis of the analytical problem (e.g., isocratic vs. gradient, throughput vs. efficiency) and the properties of the analyte. UHPLC and fused-core technologies are quite promising for small-molecular-weight compounds, but increasing the mobile phase temperature is useful for larger molecules, for example peptides.
Figure
Recent progress in HPLC technology to increase throughput and resolving power
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•Simultaneous and robust quantification of tryptophan and its 11 metabolites.•Derivatization; separation of analytes on pentafluorophenyl column.•Optimization of chromatographic ...separation using DryLab®4 software.•Quantification of analytes in human cerebrospinal fluid and serum.•Reference study for the clinical and scientific research of multiple sclerosis.
The simultaneous quantitative estimation of tryptophan (TRP) and its metabolites represents a great challenge because of their diverse chemical properties, e.g., presence of acidic, basic, and nonpolar functional groups and their immensely different concentrations in biological matrices. A short ultra high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC)–tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) method was validated for targeted analysis of TRP and its 11 most important metabolites derived via both kynurenine (KYN) and serotonin (SERO) pathways in human serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF): SERO, KYN, 3-hydroxyanthranilic acid, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid, anthranilic acid, kynurenic acid (KYNA), 3-hydroxykynurenine (3-HK), xanthurenic acid, melatonin, picolinic acid (PICA), and quinolinic acid (QUIN). After selecting the “best” reversed-phase column and organic modifier, DryLab®4 was used to optimize the gradient time and temperature in chromatographic separation. To achieve absolute quantification, deuterium-labeled internal standards were used. Among all compounds, 3 were analyzed in derivatized (butyl ester) forms (3-HK, PICA, and QUIN) and the remaining 9 in underivatized forms. Validation was performed in accordance with the ICH and FDA guidelines to determine the intraday and interday precision, accuracy, sensitivity, and recovery. To demonstrate the applicability of the developed UHPLC–MS/MS method, the aforementioned metabolites were analyzed in serum and CSF samples from patients with multiple sclerosis (multiple sclerosis group) and those with symptomatic or noninflammatory neurological diseases (control group). The concentration of QUIN dramatically increased, whereas that of KYNA slightly decreased in the multiple sclerosis group, resulting in a significantly increased QUIN/KYNA ratio and significantly decreased PICA/QUIN ratio.
Forty synthetic food colors were determined in drinks and candies by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array detection. The following food colors were analyzed ...within 19
min using a short analytical column (50
mm
×
4.6
mm i.d., 1.8
μm) at 50
°C with gradient elution: Ponceau 6R, Tartrazine, Fast yellow AB, Amaranth, Indigotine, Naphthol yellow S, Chrysoine, Ponceau 4R, Sunset yellow FCF, Red 10B, Orange G, Acid violet 7, Brilliant black PN, Allura red AC, Yellow 2G, Red 2G, Uranine, Fast red E, Green S, Ponceau 2R, Azorubine, Orange I, Quinoline yellow, Martius yellow, Ponceau SX, Ponceau 3R, Fast green FCF, Eosine, Brilliant blue FCF, Orange II, Orange RN, Acid blue 1, Erythrosine, Amido black 10B, Acid red 52, Patent blue V, Acid green 9, Phloxine B, Benzyl violet 4B, and Rose bengal. The recoveries of these compounds added to soft drinks and candies at 5
μg/g ranged from 76.6 to 115.0%, and relative standard deviations (R.S.D.s) were within 6.0%. The limits of detection and the limits of quantitation were 0.03 and 0.1
μg/g, respectively.
► UHPLC–MS/MS is a powerful platform to solve a large variety of analytical challenges. ► It is recommended to work with last generation of MS devices to take full advantage of UHPLC–MS. ► Fast duty ...cycle, limited band broadening and high flow rate compatibility are paramount for coupling UHPLC with MS. ► UHPLC–MS was successfully applied in bioanalysis, drug metabolism, multi-analyte screening, metabolomics and biopharmaceuticals.
The introduction of columns packed with porous sub-2μm particles and the extension of the upper pressure limit of HPLC instrumentation to 1300bar (ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography, UHPLC) has opened new frontiers in resolution and speed of analysis. However, certain constraints appear when coupling UHPLC technology with mass spectrometry (MS). First, the most significant limitation is related to the narrow peaks that are produced by UHPLC that require a fast duty cycle, which is only available on the latest generations of MS devices. Thus, certain analyzers are more readily compatible with UHPLC (e.g., QqQ or TOF/MS) than others (e.g., ion trap or FT-MS). Second, due to the reduction of the column volume, extra-column band broadening can become significant, leading to a reduction in the kinetic performance of the UHPLC–MS configuration. Third, as the mobile phase linear velocity is higher in UHPLC, the electrospray ionization source must also be able to provide high sensitivity at flow rates of up to 1mL/min. Despite these limitations, the UHPLC–MS/MS platform has successfully been employed over the last decade for various types of applications, including those related to bioanalysis, drug metabolism, multi-residue screening, metabolomics, biopharmaceuticals and polar compounds.