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Determination of the extent of host cell protein (HCP) contamination is an essential pre-requisite to validate the chromatographic purification of recombinant proteins. This study explores how different experimental conditions affect the HCP profiles generated during the immobilised metal ion affinity chromatographic (IMAC) purification with a Ni2+-1,4,7-triaza-cyclononane (tacn) Sepharose FF™ sorbent of the Bacillus halodurans N- and C-terminal His6-tagged xylanase A, expressed by Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) cells, and captured directly from cell lysates. Comparative studies were also carried out under identical loading, wash and elution conditions using nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA), also immobilised onto an agarose support and complexed with Ni2+ ions. High-resolution tandem mass spectrometry of the tryptic peptides derived from the proteins present in the IMAC flow-through, wash and elution fractions confirmed that the E. coli BL21(DE3) HCP profiles were dependent on the choice of adsorbent. With feedstocks containing the N- or C-terminal His6-tagged xylanase A, in several instances the same E. coli BL21(DE3) HCPs were found to co-elute with the tagged protein from either adsorbent, indicating a preferential ability of some HCPs to bind to both the IMAC resin and to the recombinant protein. This promiscuous behaviour has been found to be due to factors other than just the presence of histidine-rich motifs within the amino acid sequences of these HCPs. This case study demonstrates that the choice of protein expression and separation conditions impact on the levels of HCP contamination when different IMAC systems are employed.

A new class of efficient stationary phase has been investigated for use in the liquid chromatographic separation of low molecular weight analytes and high molecular weight biomolecules, based on the application of immobilised stimuli-responsive polymers (SRPs). To this end, two polymeric units, namely poly(2-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate) (PDMAEMA) and poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) were tethered to a triazine core. The derived poly(2-dimethyl-aminoethyl methacrylate)-block-poly(acrylic acid) (PDMAEMA-b-PAA), as a diblock co-polymer, was then immobilised onto the surface of porous silica particles. The performance of this microparticulate adsorbent was evaluated under various temperature, ionic strength and/or pH conditions in packed columns in a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) format. Baseline separations of a variety of low molecular weight analytes were achieved at different temperatures with this SRP-based adsorbent using 10 mM sodium phosphate buffer, pH 6.0, as the mobile phase. Moreover, when the ionic strength of the mobile phase was increased to 40 mM sodium phosphate buffer, pH 6.0, similar temperature changes resulted in further increases in resolution for the hydrophobic analytes. In addition, changes in the pH of the mobile phase from pH 6.0 to pH 8.0 led to significant changes in selectivity of the analytes, including reversal in their elution orders. Upon increasing the temperature, the retention times of all analytes decreased but without loss of resolution. These findings can be attributed to the consequence of the immobilised copolymer undergoing a phase transition at its lower critical solution temperature (LCST), which leads to changes in its solvated structure, including how the electrostatic, hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions/domains of the copolymer are exposed to the bulk mobile phase. Thermodynamic data were indicative of a temperature-related re-organisation of the structure of the immobilised PDMAEMA-b-PAA stationary phase with exothermic binding of the analytes occurring at temperatures below the lower critical solution temperature (LCST). In this manner; changes in the system temperature could directly be used to manipulate the adsorption and desorption behaviour of these analytes with this stimuli-responsive, polymer-modified porous silica stationary phase. Additional studies with several proteins further documented the versatility of these stimuli-responsive separation materials. The results indicated that these separations could be tuned by variation of the temperature with fully aqueous mobile phases at specific ionic strength and pH values, without the need to use an organic solvent as a component in the mobile phase.

This investigation demonstrates the application of a new peak sharpening technique to improve the separation of difficult-to-resolve racemic mixtures in capillary electro-chromatography. Molecularly imprinted porous layer open tubular (MIP-PLOT) capillaries, prepared by a layer-on-layer polymerization approach with Z-l-Asp-OH as the template, were selected to validate the approach. SEM revealed that the polymer film thickness can be varied by changes in both the polymer composition and the layer-on-layer regime. Capillaries made with methacrylic acid as the functional monomer could not separate the Z-Asp-OH racemate, due to weak interactions between the MIP-PLOT material and the target analytes. In contrast, MIP-PLOT capillaries prepared with 4-vinylpyridine as the functional monomer resulted in increased ionic interactions with the target analytes. Separation of the enantiomers could be enhanced when a peak zone sharpening effect was exploited through the use of specific BGE compositions and by taking advantage of eigenpeak phenomena. In this manner, the position of a sharpening zone and the peak shape of the sample analytes could be fine-tuned, so that when the sharpening zone and the target analyte co-migrated the separation of the Z-l-Asp-OH enantiomer from its d-enantiomer in a racemic mixture could be achieved under overloading conditions.

Iodine‐125 (125I) brachytherapy, a promising form of radiotherapy, is increasingly applied in the clinical treatment of a wide range of solid tumors. However, the extremely hypoxic microenvironment in solid tumors can cause hypoxia‐induced radioresistance to 125I brachytherapy, resulting in therapeutic inefficacy. In this study, the aim is to sensitize hypoxic areas in solid tumors using ultrasound‐activated oxygen microbubbles for 125I brachytherapy. A modified emulsion freeze‐drying method is developed to prepare microbubbles that can be lyophilized for storage and easily reconstituted in situ before administration. The filling gas of the microbubbles is modified by the addition of sulfur hexafluoride to oxygen such that the obtained O2/SF6 microbubbles (OS MBs) achieve a much longer half‐life (>3×) than that of oxygen microbubbles. The OS MBs are tested in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (CNE2) tumor‐bearing mice and oxygen delivery by the OS MBs induced by ultrasound irradiation relieve hypoxia instantly. The post‐treatment results of brachytherapy combined with the ultrasound‐triggered OS MBs show a greatly improved therapeutic efficacy compared with brachytherapy alone, illustrating ultrasound‐mediated oxygen delivery with the developed OS MBs as a promising strategy to improve the therapeutic outcome of 125I brachytherapy in hypoxic tumors., Tumor‐specific ultrasound‐activated oxygen microbubbles are developed to sensitize hypoxic tumor cells for 125I brachytherapy. The microbubbles, lyophilized for storage and easily reconstituted in situ before administration, have much better stability by the addition of sulfur hexafluoride into oxygen. Ultrasound‐mediated oxygen delivery with the microbubbles demonstrate a greatly improved therapeutic outcome of 125I brachytherapy in hypoxic tumors.

This investigation describes an integrated workflow for the parallel extraction and recovery of polyphenols and phytosterols from Pinot noir grape seeds. Using (E)-resveratrol and stigmasterol as exemplars, the approach employs two different molecular imprinted polymers in tandem for the extraction of these compounds and their subsequent analysis by capillary high-performance liquid chromatography (capHPLC) interfaced with electrospray ionisation tandem mass spectrometry (ESI MS/MS). Information on the selectivity of the solid-phase extraction processes was obtained through analysis of the binding behaviour of (E)-resveratrol- and stigmasterol-imprinted polymers using structurally similar polyphenols or phytosterols with the extent of binding determined from the capHPLC-ion trap ESI MS/MS data. This study documents with Pinot noir grape seed extracts and optimised solid-phase extraction protocols that the (E)-resveratrol-templated MIP enabled a very high recovery (99%) of the health-beneficial polyphenol (E)-resveratrol with co-purification of procyanidin and catechin/epicatechin. Further, the stigmasteryl-3-O-methacrylate-templated polymer resulted in high recovery (96%) of the phytosterol stigmasterol with co-purification of campesteryl glycoside. The results also demonstrate that rapid and high-resolution capHPLC-ESI MS/MS methods can be used as part of the work flow for selectivity optimisation and monitoring of the performance of MIPs intended for use in the solid-phase extraction of bioactive molecules with nutraceutical properties from agricultural waste streams.

In this study, the zeta potentials of a silica hydride stationary phase (Diamond Hydride™) in the presence of different water-acetonitrile mixtures (from 0-80% (v/v) acetonitrile) of different ionic strengths (from 0-40mM) and pH values (from pH 3.0-7.0) have been investigated. Debye-Hückel theory was applied to explain the effect of changes in the pH and ionic strength of these aqueous media on the negative zeta potential of this stationary phase. The experimental zeta potentials of the Diamond Hydride™ particles as a function of acetonitrile content up to 50% (v/v) correlated (R(2)=0.998) with the predicted zeta potential values based on this established theory, when the values of the dissociation constant of all related species, as well as viscosity, dielectric constant and refractive index of the aqueous medium were taken into consideration. Further, the retention behavior of basic, acidic and neutral analytes was investigated under mobile phase conditions of higher pH and lower ionic strength. Under these conditions, the Diamond Hydride™ stationary phase surface became more negative, as assessed from the increasingly more negative zeta potentials, resulting in the ion exchange characteristics becoming more dominant and the basic analytes showing increasing retention. Ionic descriptors were derived from these chromatographic experiments based on the assumption that linear solvation energy relationships prevail. The results were compared with predicted ionic descriptors based on the different calculated zeta potential values resulting in an overall correlation of R(2)=0.888. These studies provide fundamental insights into the impact on the separation performance of changes in the zeta potential of the Diamond Hydride™ surface with the results relevant to other silica hydride and, potentially, to other types of stationary phase materials.

In this study a general analytical approach has been investigated with a focus on elucidating the impact of the free energy of electrostatic interactions associated with peptide retention with silica hydride stationary phases. In particular, the contributions from electrostatic interactions between peptides and the stationary phase in the presence of water-organic mobile phases of varying organic modifier content, and containing different percentages of formic or acetic acid, were assessed using a 4 μm silica hydride adsorbent (the Diamond Hydride™ phase) in capillary chromatographic format. The magnitudes of the electrostatic contributions were calculated from the effective peptide charge and the measured zeta potential values of the stationary phase as a function of mobile phase compositions. These studies revealed that in acidic mobile phases, and depending on the peptide structure, a significant proportion of the change in the overall free energy associated with peptide retention with the Diamond Hydride™ phase can be attributed to attractive electrostatic interactions. Multi-parametric relationships have been elaborated to include the electrostatic contribution in these retention-free energy dependencies. The general application of the presented analytical methods is expected to significantly broaden the application potential and the interpretation of the retention behaviour of peptides and other compound classes separated with silica hydride and related types of silica-based stationary phases.

The reaction pathway and selectivity of the oxidative N-demethylation of the alkaloid atropine with H2O2 using a FeIII-TAML catalyst has been investigated. The conversion of atropine in ethanol with aqueous H2O2 produces noratropine as the main product and N-formyl-noratropine and other atropine derivatives involving carbon-hydroxylated tropane species as minor by-products. Comparative reactivity studies with noratropine, N-formyl-noratropine and atropine N-oxide demonstrated that the FeIII-TAML catalyses the N-demethylation of atropine by a biomimetic oxidation pathway involving the formation and then decomposition of a N-hydroxymethylnoratropine intermediate. The reaction selectivity for atropine N-demethylation versus N-methyl oxidation to N-formyl-noratropine was found to be sensitive to the structure of the alcohol co-solvent, the rate of H2O2 addition and the concentration of water, whereas temperature mainly affected the atropine conversion efficiency. The use of tert-butyl or cumene hydroperoxide as oxidants shifted the reaction selectivity toward N-methyl oxidation compared to aqueous H2O2. Various inorganic oxidants were found to be ineffective. The FeIII-TAML also catalysed the N-demethylation of the opiate alkaloids thebaine and oxycodone with aqueous H2O2 in higher conversion efficiencies compared to atropine but with lower selectivity. These investigations thus document key mechanistic features of the FeIII-TAML-catalysed N-demethylation of these alkaloids and provide insight into how this benign catalytic system could find broader utilisation for N-demethylation in general.

The retention behavior of a set of polar peptides separated on a silica hydride stationary phase was examined with a capillary HPLC system coupled to ESI-MS detection. The mobile phases consisted of formic acid or acetic acid/acetonitrile/water mixtures with the acetonitrile content ranging from 5 to 80% v/v. The effects on peptide retention of these two acidic buffer additives and their concentrations in the mobile phase were systematically investigated. Strong retention of the peptides on the silica hydride phase was observed with relatively high-organic low-aqueous mobile phases (i.e. under aqueous normal-phase conditions). However, when low concentrations of acetic acid were employed as the buffer additive, strong retention of the peptides was also observed even when high aqueous content mobile phases were employed. This unique feature of the stationary phase therefore provides an opportunity for chromatographic analysis of polar peptides with water-rich eluents, a feature usually not feasible with traditional RP sorbents, and thus under conditions more compatible with analytical green chemistry criteria. In addition, both isocratic and gradient elution procedures can be employed to optimize peptide separations with excellent reproducibility and resolution under these high aqueous mobile phase conditions with this silica hydride stationary phase.

In this study, the retention behavior and selectivity differences of water-soluble vitamins were evaluated with three types of polar stationary phases (i.e. an underivatized silica phase, an amide phase, and an amino phase) operated in the hydrophilic interaction chromatographic mode with ESI mass spectrometric detection. The effects of mobile phase composition, including buffer pH and concentration, on the retention and selectivity of the vitamins were investigated. In all stationary phases, the neutral or weakly charged vitamins exhibited very weak retention under each of the pH conditions, while the acidic and more basic vitamins showed diverse retention behaviors. With the underivatized silica phase, increasing the salt concentration of the mobile phase resulted in enhanced retention of the acidic vitamins, but decreased retention of the basic vitamins. These observations thus signify the involvement of secondary mechanisms, such as electrostatic interaction in the retention of these analytes. Under optimized conditions, a baseline separation of all vitamins was achieved with excellent peak efficiency. In addition, the effects of water content in the sample on retention and peak efficiency were examined, with sample stacking effects observed when the injected sample contained a high amount of water.

In this study, the retention behavior of selected hydrophobic and polar bases on a minimally modified silica hydride phase was investigated. From these results and the associated retention plots, significant differences in the chromatographic dependencies of these two classes of basic compounds were evident. The polar bases exhibited strong retention with mobile phases of high organic solvent content, but displayed weak retention with mobile phases of high water content. In contrast, the hydrophobic bases showed "U-shape" retention dependencies, indicative of the interplay of both RP and normal-phase retention characteristics. These studies have demonstrated that hydrophobic and polar bases can be simultaneously separated on the same column either under typical RP-like or aqueous normal-phase-like conditions, respectively, with distinctive selectivity. Finally, the effects of temperature on the RP and aqueous normal phase modality of separations with these analytes were investigated, where discrete changes in retention behavior were also observed.

Aqueous normal-phase chromatography utilizing silica-hydride-based stationary phases provides unique selectivities for the separation of polar and non-polar compounds and offers new avenues to solve difficult analytical separations. By varying the amount of water in the mobile phase, all silica-hydride-based separation materials can operate in the reversed-phase mode, the normal-phase mode or, in some instances, a combination of both. This review describes some of the fundamental properties of silica-hydride materials and applications that encompass a broad range of separation challenges. Moreover, exemplars are provided that illustrate many of the prominent features that lead to the selection of such stationary phases for solving a particular analytical problem.

A semi-covalent imprinting strategy has been developed for the synthesis of molecularly-imprinted polymers specific for the fungal sterol, ergosterol, a biological precursor of vitamin D2. This imprinting approach involved a novel post-synthesis cleavable monomer-template composite, namely ergosteryl methacrylate, and resulted in the formation of an imprinted polymer that selectively and efficiently recognized ergosterol through non-covalent interactions. The derived molecularly-imprinted polymer and the corresponding non-imprinted polymer were systematically evaluated for their selectivity towards ergosterol via static and dynamic binding studies using various ergosteryl esters (e.g. ergosteryl-cinnamate, -ferulate, -coumarate, -ferulate acetate and -acetate, respectively) as competitors. Moreover, the binding capacity of the molecularly imprinted polymer for ergosterol was enhanced when the sample loading conditions involved the use of partially aqueous solvent mixtures, such as acetonitrile/water (9:1 (v/v) or 8:2 (v/v)). These attributes were exploited in a solid-phase extraction format, whereby ergosterol was obtained with excellent recoveries from an extract of the fruiting body powder of the medicinal fungus Ganoderma tsugae var. Janniae.

A new type of stimuli-responsive polymeric (SRP) coating has been prepared for use in open tubular capillary electrochromatography (OT-CEC), by grafting poly(2-dimethylaminoethylmethacrylate)-block-poly(acrylic acid) (PDMAEMA-b-PAA) as a Y-shaped block copolymer with two dissimilar chain compositions onto the inner walls of aminopropyl-modified silica capillaries. The grafting process introduced weakly charged functional groups from the PAA and PDMAEMA, enabling the generation of electroendosmotic flow with magnitude and direction adjustable by changing the pH of the running buffer electrolyte. This stimuli-responsive PDMAEMA-b-PAA block copolymer was found to provide excellent resolution of various acidic and basic compounds, leading to efficient analyte separation. When operated in the OT-CEC mode, separation selectivities could be readily manipulated via differential contributions from chromatographic and electrophoretic mechanisms, simply by changing the pH or the ionic strength of the running buffer electrolyte.

The application of a silica hydride modified stationary phase with low organic loading has been investigated as a new type of chromatographic material suitable for the separation and analysis of peptides with electrospray ionization mass spectrometric detection. Retention maps were established to delineate the chromatographic characteristics of a series of peptides with physical properties ranging from strongly hydrophobic to very hydrophilic and encompassing a broad range of pI values (pI 5.5-9.4). The effects of low concentrations of two additives (formic acid and acetic acid) in the mobile phase were also investigated with respect to their contribution to separation selectivity and retention under comparable conditions. Significantly, strong retention of both the hydrophobic and the hydrophilic peptides was observed when high-organic low-aqueous mobile phases were employed, thus providing a new avenue to achieve high resolution peptide separations. For example, simultaneous separation of hydrophobic and hydrophilic peptides was achieved under aqueous normal phase (ANP) chromatographic conditions with linear gradient elution procedures in a single run, whilst further gradient optimization enabled improved peak efficiencies of the more strongly retained hydrophobic and hydrophilic peptides.

Molecularly imprinted solid phase extraction (MISPE) has been employed to isolate and concentrate bioactive polyphenols from peanut press waste. To this end, a molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) templated with the phytoalexin (E)-resveratrol has been prepared via self-assembly with the functional monomer 4-vinylpyridine (4VP) in a 1:3 molar ratio. Subsequent molecular interrogation of the MIP binding sites demonstrated preferential structural selectivity for (E)-resveratrol with respect to other structurally related naturally occurring compounds. This selectivity was subsequently exploited to achieve substantial sample cleanup of peanut press waste under aqueous conditions with significant enrichment of (E)-resveratrol (>60 fold) requiring minimal sample preparation.

In this study, the analysis of a peptide set, chosen for their differences in hydrophilicity, and the tryptic digests of bovine cytochrome c and beta-lactoglobulin by hydrophilic interaction chromatography-electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (HILIC-ESI-MS) is demonstrated. Two different types of HILIC phases, i.e., an amide- and an amino-modified silica-based phase, packed into narrow bore or capillary columns, were investigated with separations conducted under either low pH or neutral pH conditions. The separation performance of the two HILIC columns with respect to peak efficiency and selectivity have been documented under these different mobile phase conditions, and the results compared with the performance of a conventional capillary reversed-phase C18 column of similar dimensions. It was found that very good separation of the peptide set could be achieved by using the amide-modified silica column over a broad pH range. Moreover, with the protein digest samples, excellent separation of the tryptic digests was obtained with the amide-modified HILIC column under neutral pH conditions. Compared to the conventional reversed-phase C18 separations, the use of these HILIC columns not only provided complementary separation selectivity, but also offered the capability to identify unique peptides using tandem HILIC-mass spectrometric techniques. These studies therefore highlight the potential of HILIC procedures for future proteomic applications.

In this study, the surface charge properties of perfluorinated C8 (PerfluoroC8) and undecanoic acid (UDA) modified silica hydride stationary phases have been investigated. The zeta potential values of these stationary phases were measured in aqueous/acetonitrile mobile phases of different pH, buffer concentrations and acetonitrile contents. The retention behaviour of several basic, acidic and neutral compounds were then examined with these two stationary phases, with U-shaped retention dependencies evident with regard to the organic solvent content of the mobile phase. Plots of the logarithmic retention factor versus buffer concentration revealed slopes ≥ -0.41 for both stationary phases, indicating the involvement of mixed mode retention mechanisms with contributions from both ionic and non-ionic interactions. Using a linear solvation energy relationship approach, the origins of these interactions under different mobile phase conditions were differentiated and quantified. The PerfluoroC8 stationary phase exhibited stronger retention for basic compounds under high acetonitrile content mobile phase conditions, whilst stronger retention was observed for all compounds with the UDA stationary phase under high aqueous content mobile phase conditions. The more negative zeta potentials of the UDA stationary phase correlated with higher total charge density, surface charge density and charge density at the beta plane (the outer plane of the double layer) compared to the PerfluoroC8 stationary phase. With mobile phases of low buffer concentrations, more negative zeta potential values were unexpectedly observed for the PerfluoroC8 stationary phase with slight increases in the C descriptor value, reflecting also the greater accessibility of the analytes to the stationary phase surface. Comparison of the retention behaviours on these phases with other types of silica hydride stationary phases has revealed different patterns of selectivity.

A capillary zone electrophoretic-electrospray ion trap mass spectrometric method has been developed to assess the stability and pathways of degradation of the cancer therapeutic octapeptide, octreotide. As a somatostatin analogue, octreotide contains a single disulphide bond linking Cys(2)-Cys(7) with the structure of NH2-D-Phe-[Formula: see text]-Thr-OH. Resolution of octreotide from its degradation products was achieved using a capillary zone electrophoretic method with bare fused silica capillaries, a 10mM ammonium formate buffer, pH 3.20, at 25 °C and an applied voltage of 25 kV. An ion trap low energy collision induced dissociation procedure was applied for the characterization of the chemical structures of the degradation products derived from an acidic, alkaline, neutral and thermal solution treatment of octreotide. The results so obtained indicated that linear octreotide degradation products were formed under acidic and alkaline conditions, due to the hydrolysis of a ring amide bond and a hitherto unknown desulfurization of the Cys-Cys disulfide bond, respectively. Degradation under neutral conditions occurred via cleavage of the exocyclic N-((2R,3R)-1,3-dihydroxybutan-2-yl) amide bond which also preceded the ring amide hydrolysis under acidic conditions. The developed method was further successfully applied to assess the kinetics of these octreotide degradations. Overall, this method is suitable for the rapid and precise assessment of the stability and quality control of octreotide as a synthetic peptide-based pharmaceutical product, and has led to the discovery of a new Cys-Cys disulfide degradation pathway.

In this study, the advantages of carrying out the analysis of peptides and tryptic digests of proteins under gradient elution conditions at pH 6.5 by reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) and in-line electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) are documented. For these RP separations, a double endcapped, bidentate anchored n-octadecyl wide pore silica adsorbent was employed in a capillary column format. Compared to the corresponding analysis of the same peptides and protein tryptic digests using low pH elution conditions for their RP-HPLC separation, this alternative approach provides improved selectivity and more efficient separation of these analytes, thus allowing a more sensitive identification of proteins at different abundance levels, i.e. more tryptic peptides from the same protein could be confidently identified, enabling higher sequence coverage of the protein to be obtained. This approach was further evaluated with very complex tryptic digests derived from a human plasma protein sample using an online two-dimensional (2D) strong cation-exchange (SCX)-RP-HPLC-ESI-MS/MS system. Again, at pH 6.5, with mobile phases of different compositions, improved chromatographic selectivities were obtained, concomitant with more sensitive on-line electrospray ionisation tandem mass spectrometric (ESI-MS/MS) analysis. As a consequence, more plasma proteins could be confidently identified, highlighting the potential of these RP-HPLC methods with elution at pH 6.5 to extend further the scope of proteomic investigations.

In this study, the zeta potentials of type-B silica, bare silica hydride, the so-called Diamond Hydride™ and phenyl substituted silica hydride stationary phases have been measured in aqueous-organic media and correction procedures developed to account for the more negative zeta potential values in media containing different acetonitrile contents. Retention studies of 16 basic, acidic and neutral compounds were also performed with these four stationary phases with mobile phases containing 0.1% (v/v) formic acid and various acetonitrile-water compositions ranging from 0-90% (v/v) acetonitrile. The retention properties of these analytes were correlated to the corrected stationary phase zeta potentials measured under these different mobile phase conditions with R(2) values ranging from 0.01 to 1.00, depending on the stationary phase and analyte type. Using linear solvation energy relationships, stationary phase descriptors for each stationary phase have been developed for the different mobile phase conditions. Very high correlations of the zeta potentials with the ionic interaction descriptors were obtained for the type-B silica and the Diamond Hydride™ phases and good correlation with bare silica hydride material whilst there was no correlation observed for the phenyl substituted silica hydride phase. The nature of the retention mechanisms which gives rise to these different observations is discussed. The described methods represent a useful new approach to characterize and assess the retention properties of silica-hydride based chromatographic stationary phases of varying bonded-phase coverage and chemistries, as would be broadly applicable to other types of stationary phase used in the separation sciences.

Red wine has long been credited as a good source of health-beneficial antioxidants, including the bioactive polyphenols catechin, quercetin, and (E)-resveratrol. In this paper, we report the application of reusable molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) for the selective and robust solid-phase extraction (SPE) and rapid analysis of (E)-resveratrol (LOD=8.87×10(-3) mg/L, LOQ=2.94×10(-2) mg/L), along with a range of other polyphenols from an Australian Pinot noir red wine. Optimization of the molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction (MISPE) protocol resulted in the significant enrichment of (E)-resveratrol and several structurally related polyphenols. These secondary metabolites were subsequently identified by RP-HPLC and μLC-ESI ion trap MS/MS methods. The developed MISPE protocol employed low volumes of environmentally benign solvents selected according to the Green Chemistry principles, and resulted in the recovery of 99% of the total (E)-resveratrol present. These results further demonstrate the potential of generic protocols for the analysis of target compound with health beneficial properties within the food and nutraceutical industries using tailor-made MIPs.

A versatile experimental approach is described to achieve very high sensitivity analysis of peptides by capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry with sheath flow configuration based on optimization of field-amplified sample injection. Compared to traditional hydrodynamic injection methods, signal enhancement in terms of detection sensitivity of the bioanalytes by more than 3000-fold can be achieved. The effects of injection conditions, composition of the acid and organic solvent in the sample solution, length of the water plug, sample injection time, and voltage on the efficiency of the sample stacking have been systematically investigated, with peptides in the low-nanomolar (10(-9) M) range readily detected under the optimized conditions. Linearity of the established stacking method was found to be excellent over 2 orders of magnitude of concentration. The method was further evaluated for the analysis of low concentration bioactive peptide mixtures and tryptic digests of proteins. A distinguishing feature of the described approach is that it can be employed directly for the analysis of low-abundance protein fragments generated by enzymatic digestion and a reversed-phase-based sample-desalting procedure. Thus, rapid identification of protein fragments as low-abundance analytes can be achieved with this new approach by comparison of the actual tandem mass spectra of selected peptides with the predicted fragmentation patterns using online database searching algorithms.

The effect of variations in the concentrations of different organic solvents, including acetonitrile, methanol, ethanol, propanol and isopropanol, with aqueous buffer electrolytes of defined composition and pH on the electroosmotic flow velocity, υ EOF , of uncoated fused silica capillaries and on the electrophoretic mobility, μ e , of synthetic peptides in high-performance capillary electrophoresis (HPCE) has been systematically investigated. In these experiments, the volume fractions of the organic solvent in the aqueous buffer electrolyte were changed from ψ =0.0 to 0.80. The addition of these organic solvents to the aqueous buffer electrolyte reduced the electroosmotic flow (EOF) of the system, but to significantly different extents. For the protic solvents as the alkyl chain of the alcohol increased, at the same volume fraction the greater was the influence on the electroosmotic flow. However, for the aprotic solvent, acetonitrile, the EOF did not change substantially as the volume fraction was varied. The electrophoretic mobility of synthetic peptides under the different buffer electrolyte conditions showed similar trends, confirming that the content and type of the organic modifier can be rationally employed to subtly manipulate the separation selectivity of synthetic peptides. These results, therefore, provide fundamental insight into the experimental options that can be used to maximise resolution of synthetic peptides in HPCE with aqueous buffer-organic solvent mixtures as well as a basis to select optimal binary or ternary buffer electrolyte compositions for the analysis of peptides when hyphenated techniques, such as HPCE–electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (ESI-MS), are contemplated for the analysis of peptide samples of low abundance as can often be experienced in proteomic investigations.

The separation of two different sets of synthetic peptides has been investigated by high-performance capillary zone electrophoresis utilising naked, fused silica capillaries. The effects of electrolyte pH, buffer concentration, capillary length and electric field strength on the separation efficiency and selectivity were systematically varied, with the highest resolution achieved with buffer electrolytes of low pH and relatively high ionic strength. Under optimised separation conditions utilising the "short end injection" separation approach with negative electric field polarity, a series of eight structurally-related synthetic peptides were baseline resolved within 4 min without addition of any modifier of the background electrolyte with separation efficiencies in the vicinity of 600000 theoretical plates/m. Further significant enhancement of separation efficiencies could be achieved by taking advantage of the "long end injection" approach with positive electric field polarity. The outcome of these experimental variations parallels the "sweeping" effect that has been observed in the capillary electrochromatographic and micellar electrokinetic separations of polar molecules and permits rapid resolution of peptides with focusing effects. In addition, small changes in the electrolyte buffer pH and concentration were found to have a significant impact on the selectivity of synthetic peptides of similar intrinsic charge. These observations indicate that multi-modal separation mechanisms operated under these conditions with the unmodified fused silica capillaries. This study, moreover, documents additional examples of peptide-specific multi-zoning behaviour in the high-performance capillary zone electrophoretic separation of synthetic peptides.

The oxidative N-demethylation of tropane alkaloids to their nortropane derivatives has been investigated using H2O2 and an iron(III) tetraamido macrocycle (FeIII-TAML) catalyst. The yields of the nortropanes were found to be dependent on the amount of H2O2 used in the reaction, the catalyst loading, the nature of the organic co-solvent and the type of tropine substrate. N-Hydroxy-nortropane, N-formyl-nortropane and tropane-N-oxide derivatives were identified as by-products of the reaction. After screening various reaction conditions, the optimised conditions were applied to the N-demethylation of atropine and scopolamine at preparative scales and the desired products, noratropine and norscopolamine, obtained following one pot reactions in good yields and high purity without the need for any chromatographic purification steps.

In this study, the open-tubular electrochromatographic (OT-CEC) migration behavior of various peptides has been characterized using etched and chemically (n-octadecyl- and cholesterol-) modified capillaries, interfaced to an electrospray ionization mass spectrometer through a sheath liquid configuration. The stationary phases were fabricated by etching the inner wall of the fused-silica capillary and then chemically modifying the new surface through a silanization/hydrosilation reaction. Unlike some other OT-CEC stationary-phase preparation methods, leaching of the immobilized stationary phase and subsequent contamination of the electrospray ion source was largely avoided with this novel surface modification technology. The influence of the immobilized organic phases and those of the buffer electrolytes (pH, the type and content of organic solvent) on the retention and separation of the selected peptides was investigated. Significant peptide retention was found even at very low pH with both types of stationary phases, under conditions whereby the electrophoretic migration dominated the separation process. Due to the effective coverage of the etched surface by a silanization/hydrosilation reaction, adverse adsorption of charged analytes onto the capillary wall was minimized. As a result, very efficient and highly reproducible peptide separations were achieved over a broad pH range. Moreover, peptide-specific multizoning effects were observed. The origin of this novel phenomenon was explored. Compared to capillary electrophoresis electrospray ionization mass spectrometry system, much higher detection sensitivity could be obtained, since a larger amount of sample could be injected and stacked at the head of the open-tubular capillary column without deteriorating the separation performance. On the basis of these observations, these procedures have been adapted to allow the analysis of tryptic peptides generated from proteins.

This investigation describes the separation of tryptic peptides by capillary reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) with eluents in the intermediate pH range, followed by in-line electrospray ionisation tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS) analysis. For these purposes, gradient elution procedures with an aqueous eluent containing 20 mM ammonium formate, and an increasing content of acetonitrile or methanol, were employed. Compared to the analysis of the same tryptic peptides under low-pH conditions with an ion-pairing reagent, the increase in the pH with the 20 mM ammonium formate mobile phase led to significant changes in both peptide retention to the reversed-phase column and the collision-induced dissociation at the MS/MS stage as a consequence of the changes in the physico-chemical properties of these peptides, such as their overall charge, polarity and relative hydrophobicity. Thus, improved selectivity for the peptide separation and favourable tandem mass spectrometry analysis could be obtained with eluents in this intermediate pH range. The number of tryptic peptides identified by the new approach for the proteins investigated were significantly higher than that obtained by the conventional low-pH methods. Moreover, analysis of protein digests at very low concentrations was also performed under both acidic and intermediate pH conditions and similar improvements in selectivity and MS/MS detection limits were observed, i.e. identification of more distinct peptides and higher sequence coverage of the protein was obtained when eluents of intermediate pH were employed. This study therefore highlights the potential of conducting peptide mapping in the intermediate pH range to achieve more reliable and sensitive protein identifications with capillary RP-HPLC-ESI-MS/MS.