[Determination of fatty acid composition after saponification of common oil pharmaceutical excipients by supercritical fluid-evaporative light scattering method and its application in oil identification].

Oils and fats are commonly used in the pharmaceutical industry as solvents, emulsifiers, wetting agents, and dispersants, and are an important category of pharmaceutical excipients. Fatty acids with unique compositions are important components of oil pharmaceutical excipients. The Chinese Pharmacopoeia provides clear descriptions of the fatty acid types and limits suitable for individual oil pharmaceutical excipient. An unqualified fatty acid composition or content may indicate adulteration or deterioration. The fatty acid composition, as a key indicator for the identification and adulteration evaluation of oil pharmaceutical excipients, can directly affect the quality and safety of oil pharmaceutical excipients and preparations. Gas chromatography is the most widely used technique for fatty acid analysis, but it generally requires derivatization, which affects quantitative accuracy. Supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC), an environmentally friendly technique with excellent separation capability, offers an efficient method for detecting fatty acids without derivatization. Unlike other chromatographic methods, SFC does not use nonvolatile solvents (e. g., water) as the mobile phase, rendering it compatible with an evaporative light-scattering detector (ELSD) for enhanced detection sensitivity. However, the fatty acids in oil pharmaceutical excipients exist in the free and bound forms, and the low content of free fatty acids in these oil pharmaceutical excipients not only poses challenges for their detection but also complicates the determination of characteristic fatty acid compositions and contents. Moreover, the compositions and ratios of fatty acids are influenced by environmental factors, leading to interconversion between their two forms. In this context, saponification provides a simpler and faster alternative to derivatization. Saponification degrades oils and fats by utilizing the reaction between esters and an alkaline solution, ultimately releasing the corresponding fatty acids. Because this method is more cost effective than derivatization, it is a suitable pretreatment method for the detection of fatty acids in oil pharmaceutical excipients using the SFC-ELSD approach. In this study, we employed SFC-ELSD to simultaneously determine six fatty acids, namely, myristic acid, palmitic acid, stearic acid, arachidic acid, docosanoic acid, and lignoceric acid, in oil pharmaceutical excipients. Saponification of the oil pharmaceutical excipients using sodium hydroxide methanol solution effectively avoided the bias in the determination of fatty acid species and contents caused by the interconversion of fatty acids and esters. The separation of the six fatty acids was achieved within 12 min, with good linearity within their respective mass concentration ranges. The limits of detection and quantification were 5-10 mg/L and 10-25 mg/L, respectively, and the spiked recoveries were 80.93%-111.66%. The method proved to be sensitive, reproducible, and stable, adequately meeting requirements for the analysis of fatty acids in oil pharmaceutical excipients. Finally, the analytical method was successfully applied to the determination of six fatty acids in five types of oil pharmaceutical excipients, namely, corn oil, soybean oil, coconut oil, olive oil, and peanut oil. It can be combined with principal component analysis to accurately differentiate different types of oil pharmaceutical excipients, providing technical support for the rapid identification and quality control of oil pharmaceutical excipients. Thus, the proposed method may potentially be applied to the analysis of complex systems adulterated with oil pharmaceutical excipients.

Analysis of impurities in vertilmicin sulfate by liquid chromatography ion-trap mass spectrometry.

The characterization of impurities present in vertilmicin by liquid chromatography (LC) coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) is described. A reversed phase (RP)-LC method using a C18 column resistant to basic pH with an alkaline (pH 11) aqueous mobile phase was developed and coupled to MS with an electrospray ionization (ESI) source in the positive ion mode which provides MS(n) capability. In total, 18 impurities were detected in a commercial sample. Eleven impurities described in this work were newly identified.

Impurity profiling of micronomicin sulfate injection by liquid chromatography-ion trap mass spectrometry.

The characterization of impurities present in micronomicin sulfate injection by liquid chromatography (LC) coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) is described. A reversed phase (RP)-LC method using a C18 column resistant to an alkaline (pH 11) aqueous mobile phase was developed and coupled to MS with an electrospray ionization (ESI) source in the positive ion mode which provides MS(n) capability. A total of thirty six impurities were detected in commercial samples: five impurities were identified by comparison of their fragmentation patterns with those of available related substances, eleven of them were identified in accordance with relevant literature, while the other twenty impurities were newly identified using the MS/MS spectra of the available related reference substances as interpretative templates combined with knowledge of the nature of functional group fragmentation behaviors. This work was applied to evaluate the quality of micronomicin sulfate injection from different manufacturers.

Impurity profiling of etimicin sulfate by liquid chromatography ion-trap mass spectrometry.

A reversed phase (RP)-LC method using a C(18) column resistant to basic pH and an alkaline (pH 10) aqueous mobile phase was developed and coupled to MS with an electrospray ionization (ESI) source in the positive ion mode which provides MS(n) capability. In total, 26 impurities were detected in a commercial sample. The structures of the impurities were proposed based on comparison of their fragmentation patterns with those of the available reference substances, the synthetic route and literature data. Starting material and its residual impurities, intermediates, synthetic by-products and degradation products were the main sources of those impurities. 14 impurities described in this work were newly identified.

[Related substances in purified alliin determined by HPLC-MS/MS].

To study the related substances in purified alliin, HPLC-MS/MS method carried out on a Phenomenex NH2 column was used for screen and identification of the related substances with full scan MS spectra determination of their [M + H] + ions and then the analyses of the retention time, product MS spectra and/or chemical reference standards. The full scan HPLC-MS chromatogram showed that there were seven major related substances in the purified alliin and their m/z of the [M + H] + ions with increasing retention were 116, 133, 147, 152, 175, 178 and 178, separately. And they were identified as proline, asparagine, glutamine, methiin, arginine, isoalliin and cycloalliin (both were isomers of alliin), respectively. The major related substances in purified alliin are amino acids, homologen and the isomers of alliin.

[Study on water of crystallization in tazobactam].

AIM: To investigate whether tazobctam has crystallization water. METHODS: In order to establish a method for water content determination in tazobctam, many methods including Karl Fischer titration, weight loss on drying, TGA, DSC and X-ray diffraction experiment of an orthorhombic form were studied. RESULTS: The water content of the same batch tazobactam determined by different mthods was different. CONCLUSION: The results showed that one mole tazobatam contains half mole water of crystallization and the strength of attraction between tazobatam molecule and water molecule is rather strong.