Requirements for new pharmaceutical products and their impact on applications of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) are discussed. The strengths and weaknesses of HPLC in this context are evaluated and compared with current trends and expectation in separation science.

Computer-aided method development techiques have been commercially available for a number of years. Each of these procedures has strengths and weaknesses. In the past, hidden difficulties in the practical application of computeraided method development have discouraged their widespread use. This paper proposes the complementary use of these techniques so that their strengths are maximized while their weaknesses are compensated for. The result is a method development strategy that obtains simple solutions for simple separation problems and reserves the more complex solutions for difficult separations.

Isocratic method for the separation of nitrobenzene, 2,6-dinitrotoluene, benzene, 2-nitrotoluene, 3-nitrotoluene, 4-nitrotoluene, 2-nitro-1,3-xylene, 4-nitro-1,2-xylene. The most robust Separation is available at (60:40)(MeOH:Water) on a 250x4.6mm, 5 µm C18 column at 2 ml/min flowrate.

Summary

The ribosomal 50S and 30S subunit proteins (r-proteins) of Thermus aquaticus have, for the first time, been characterized by size exclusion chromatography (SEC) and by reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography (RPC). To ensure that the best resolution in the RPC was obtained. the elution conditions, such as gradient time, flow rate, temperature, ionic strength of the eluent and the type of stationary phase were optimized. Correlation between experimentally found retention times and those predicted by DryLab G was better than 0.7% over 30 peaks. Protein fractions from RPC runs were desalted and processed by gel electrophoresis so that the ribosomal proteins could be identified by their position on SDS-polyacrylamide gels. The enhanced speed and quality of separation which has been achieved in this study is expected to bring advantages in experimental work with ribosomal proteins as well as with other biopolymers. In our case the high resolution technique provides a basis for the preparation of a collection of individual ribosomal protein components for future rRNA-protein interaction studies.

Two computer programs for developing and improving high-performance liquid chromatographic methods, DryLab G and LCSIM, have recently been described. The accuracies of these two programs were examined using experimental (o-phthalaldehyde-derivatized amino acids) and synthetic data. DryLab G, which uses gradient data for input, correctly predicted retention times for various gradient and isocratic separations. Predicted retention times for the simulation of certain isocratic conditions are susceptible to errors in the measured dwell volume, but the prediction of resolution is not seriously affected. LCSIM uses isocratic data for input, and predicted gradient retention times are affected by the accuracy of the measured dwell volume. The resolution of closely eluting analytes was usually predicted within a small fraction of the peak width, i.e., with negligible errors.

The separation of seven o-phthalaldehyde-derivatized amino acids by reversed-phase gradient elution was studied as a function of gradient time and mobile phase flow-rate. The resulting separations were compared with those from computer simulation (Drylab G). Predictions of retention time via computer simulation were found to be quite accurate, being about ±0.7% for retention time and about ±7% for retention-time differences (resolution). Predictions of band width were accurate within about ±15% for all but the steepest gradients (b > 1.0). Consequently, the ability of computer simulation to predict chromatograms reliably as a function of gradient conditions and flow-rate was confirmed for a sample that is representative of “real life”. For very steep gradients (b > 1.0), significant errors in band width were observed. The source of these errors could arise from various effects which are discussed.