Résumé
To establish a method for the determination of polymer impurities in cefixime raw materials and preparations, a cefixime degradation solution containing polymer impurities was prepared by forced polymerization. Polymer impurities in the degradation solution were separated and identified by high performance gel chromatography and the column switching-LC-MSn method. A new RP-HPLC method for cefixime polymer was established and validated with a Phenomenex Gemini-C18 column using a mobile phase gradient elution of 0.5% formic acid-water solution and 0.5% formic acid-acetonitrile solution. The results showed that when using this high performance gel chromatography method some small molecular weight impurities were co-eluted with the polymers, resulting in a poor specificity and poor quantitative accuracy. But when using the RP-HPLC method, three polymer impurities were detected with good specificity, sensitivity and robustness, including two cefixime dimers, and dehydrate dimer. Therefore, the described RP-HPLC method is suitable for the quality control of polymer impurities in cefixime, and cefixime degradation solution can be used as suitable solution for analysis of cefixime polymers.
Résumé
OBJECTIVE: To characterize the impurity structures in vancomycin raw material. METHODS: Impurities were eluted gradiently on a Chromasil 100-5 C18(4.6 mm×250 mm, 5 μm) column, with triethylamine buffer solution (pH 3.2)-acetonitrile-tetrahydrofuran (92∶7∶1, V/V/V) as mobile phase A, and triethylamine buffer solution (pH 3.2)-acetonitrile-tetrahydrofuran (70∶29∶1, V/V/V) as mobile phase B. Stress tests were performed on the raw material to specify those impurities. By application of on-line LC/MSn method, the impurities were analyzed in positive mode and their structures were characterized based on the degradation mechanism and mass fragmentation regularity of sugar-lipopeptides. RESULTS: Totally 14 impurities were characterized in the raw material, seven of which were reported for the first time. The relationships between the chemical structures and chromatographic behaviors of vancomycin, demethylvancomycin and methylated vancomycin with their two β-isomers were summarized. CONCLUSION: The structures of related impurities in vancomycin raw material can be rapidly identified by on-line LC/MSn method together with stress degradation experiments.