Characterizing the interaction between enantiomers of eight psychoactive drugs and highly sulfated-β-cyclodextrin by counter-current capillary electrophoresis

The estimation of apparent binding constants and limit mobilities of the complexes of the enantiomers that characterize the interaction of enantiomers with chiral selectors, in this case highly sulfated -cyclodextrin, was approached using a simple and economic electrophoretic modality, the complete filling technique (CFT) in counter-current mode. The enantiomers of eight psychoactive drugs, four antihistamines (dimethindene, promethazine, orphenadrine and terfenadine) and four antidepressants (bupropion, fluoxetine, nomifensine and viloxazine) were separated for the first time for this cyclodextrin (CD). Estimations of thermodynamic and electrophoretic enantioselectivies were also performed. Results indicate that, in general, thermodynamic enantioselectivity is the main component explaining the high resolution found, but also one case suggests that electrophoretic enantioselectivity itself is enough to obtain a satisfactory resolution. CFT results advantageous compared with conventional capillary electrophoresis (CE) and partial filling technique (PFT) for the study of the interaction between drugs and chiral selectors. It combines the use of a simple fitting model (as in CE), when the enantiomers do not exit the chiral selector plug during the separation (i.e. mobility of electroosmotic flow larger than mobility of CD), and drastic reduction of the consumption (and cost; similar to 99.7%) of the CD reagent (as in PFT) compared with the conventional CE. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.