Isolation and structure elucidation of unexpected in-process impurities during tetrazole ring formation of an investigational drug substance.

During the formation of a tetrazole ring on an investigational drug, two in-process impurities were detected and analyzed by LC-MS, which suggested that both impurities were drug-related with the same mass-to-charge ratio. To understand and control their formation, both impurities were isolated from the mother liquor of the reaction using a multi-step isolation procedure to obtain a sufficient amount for high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) and NMR structural analysis. HRMS suggested a protonated mass of 577.32 Da for both impurities; however, MS fragmentation patterns provided limited information on their structures. NMR analysis indicated the presence on an additional NH functional group in both isolates with similar spatial and bond correlations to one of the dimethylcarbamoyl moieties and the corresponding aromatic ring. A phenyldimethylcarbamoylamino moiety was supported by the NMR and HRMS data and could be explained based on the 'Schmidt-like' reaction mechanism, which was an unexpected reaction pathway. Because the reaction conditions were fixed because of safety concerns, the crystallization protocol was redesigned to reduce the levels of these impurities significantly. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Influence of temperature on the enantioselectivity of koga tetraamines on amylose chiral stationary phases.

Enantioseparation is largely based on the formation of transitional complexes, the solvation species, the stationary phase configurations or the diastereomeric complexes formed by analytes and the chiral stationary phase. Temperature and the chemical nature and composition of the eluent play significant roles during that process. In this study; unique temperature-induced behaviors were observed during the enantioseparation of Koga tetraamines, also known as Koga bases, on polysaccharide chiral stationary phases, in which van't Hoff plots were acquired over a temperature range of 10 °C to 40 °C with 5 °C increments. Koga bases were eluted by a mixture of methanol and 2-propanol with 0.03% triethylamine as a modifier. The van't Hoff plots are linear in the case of eluent containing equal volumes of methanol and 2-propanol. Increasing 2-propanol concentration from 50% to 85% in volume led to non-linear van't Hoff plots over the entire temperature range studied. Examination of the individual non-linear plots revealed two linear regions of 10 °C-20 °C and 20 °C-40 °C. Transition from one linear region to the other at 20 °C indicates alterations of chiral stationary phase conformation and/or enantioseparation mechanism as a result of temperature changes.

Discovery of dehydro-oxopiperazine acetamides as novel bradykinin B1 receptor antagonists with enhanced in vitro potency.

In a series of bradykinin B1 antagonists, we discovered that replacement of oxopiperazine acetamides with dehydro-oxopiperazine acetamides provided compounds with enhanced activity against the B1 receptor. The synthesis and SAR leading to potent analogs with reduced molecular weight will be discussed.

Direct separation and detection of biogenic amines by ion-pair liquid chromatography with chemiluminescent nitrogen detector.

Analysis of biogenic amines is critical to pharmaceutical and food industry due to their biological importance. For many years, the determination of biogenic amines has relied on high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupling with pre-, on-, or post-column derivatization procedures to enable UV or fluorescent detections. In this study, 14 biogenic amines were separated on a Phenomenex Luna Phenyl-Hexyl column by an ion-pair liquid chromatography method using perfluorocarboxylic acids as ion-pair reagents and detected by a chemiluminescent nitrogen detector (CLND). This direct separation and detection HPLC method eliminated the time consuming and cumbersome derivatization procedures. Compared with HPLC-UV (post-column derivatization with ninhydrin) and HPLC-charged aerosol detector (CAD) methods, this HPLC-CLND technique provided narrower peaks, better baselines, and improved separations and detections. Excellent linearity was acquired by CLND for each of the 14 biogenic amines ranging from less than 1 ng to about 1000 ng (on-column weights). The relative response factors determined by this LC-CLND method were proportional to the numbers of nitrogen atoms in each compound, which has been the characteristic of the equimolar determinations by CLND. In addition, a number of samples including beer, dairy beverage, herb tea, and vinegar were analyzed by the LC-CLND method with satisfactory precision and accuracy.

Effects of solvent on chiral and enantiomeric separation of Koga bases using derivatized amylose chiral stationary phase.

The separation of R,R-, S,S-, and meso-Koga bases on derivatized amylose chiral stationary phases (CSP) has been studied using different alcohol and alcohol-hexane mixtures as eluant. Straight-chain and branched alcohols with carbon numbers from one to four were investigated. The carbon number and geometry of the alcohol impacts the separation of Koga bases. The optimal separations were obtained using a mixture of methanol with linear or branched alcohol. Also, the elution order of meso- and R,R-Koga base was switched as content of branched alcohol increases in cosolvent. The study of acidic and basic additive effects demonstrated that maintaining analytes in the free base state is crucial in order to achieve retention and separation. TEA alone or TEA and TFA mixture were used in the studies.