Determination of the plasma levels of metyrapone and its enantiomeric metyrapol metabolites by direct plasma injection and multidimensional achiral-chiral chromatography

The development and validation of a direct injection high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method, with column switching, for the determination of metyrapol enantiomers and metyrapone in human plasma is described. The system used in this work was composed of a restricted access media (RAM) bovine serum albumin (BSA) octyl column coupled to an amylose tris(3,5-dimethoxyphenylcarbamate) chiral column. Water was used as eluent for the first 5 min at a flow rate of 1.0 ml/min for the elution of the plasma proteins and then acetonitrile-water (30:70 v/v) for the transfer and analysis of metyrapol enantiomers and metyrapone, which were detected by UV at lambda = 260 nm. The total analysis time was about 32 min. The calibration curves for each enantiomer and for the metyrapone were linear in the ranges 0.075-0.75 mug/ml and 0.150-1.50 mug/ml, respectively. Recoveries, intra- and interday precision and accuracy were determined using three quality controls, one low (0.18 pg/ml), one medium (0.75 mug/ml), and one high (1.35 mug/ml) plasma concentration. Quantitative recoveries and good precision and accuracy were obtained. The limit of quantitation were 0.045 mug/ml for both enantiomers and for the metyrapone. (C) 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.