Development and Validation of a Chiral Liquid Chromatographic Assay for Enantiomeric Separation and Quantification of Verapamil in Rat Plasma: Stereoselective Pharmacokinetic Application

Abstract

A novel, fast and sensitive enantioselective HPLC assay with a new core-shell isopropyl carbamate cyclofructan 6 (superficially porous particle, SPP) chiral column (LarihcShell-P, LSP) was developed and validated for the enantiomeric separation and quantification of verapamil (VER) in rat plasma. The polar organic mobile phase composed of acetonitrile/methanol/trifluoroacetic acid/triethylamine (98:2:0.05: 0.025, v/v/v/v) and a flow rate of 0.5 mL/min was applied. Fluorescence detection set at excitation/emission wavelengths 280/313 nm was used and the whole analysis process was within 3.5 min, which is 10-fold lower than the previous reported HPLC methods in the literature. Propranolol was selected as the internal standard. The S-(-)- and R-(+)-VER enantiomers with the IS were extracted from rat plasma by utilizing Waters Oasis HLB C18 solid phase extraction cartridges without interference from endogenous compounds. The developed assay was validated following the US-FDA guidelines over the concentration range of 1-450 ng/mL (r² ≥ 0.997) for each enantiomer (plasma) and the lower limit of quantification was 1 ng/mL for both isomers. The intra- and inter-day precisions were not more than 11.6% and the recoveries of S-(-)- and R-(+)-VER at all quality control levels ranged from 92.3% to 98.2%. The developed approach was successfully applied to the stereoselective pharmacokinetic study of VER enantiomers after oral administration of 10 mg/kg racemic VER to Wistar rats. It was found that S-(-)-VER established higher C_max and area under the concentration-time curve (AUC) values than the R-(+)-enantiomer. The newly developed approach is the first chiral HPLC for the enantiomeric separation and quantification of verapamil utilizing a core-shell isopropyl carbamate cyclofructan 6 chiral column in rat plasma within 3.5 min after solid phase extraction (SPE).

Keywords: chiral HPLC; core–shell chiral column; rat plasma; stereoselective pharmacokinetics; verapamil enantiomers.

Figure 1

Chemical structure of verapamil enantiomers and propranolol (IS).

Figure 2

Representative overlaid HPLC chromatograms of the rat plasma analysis of S-(−)-verapamil (1.95 min), R-(+)-verapamil (2.29 min) (1.0–450 ng/mL) and propranolol (3.38), (IS), (500 ng/mL).

Figure 3

Representative HPLC chromatograms of blank plasma spiked with S-(−)- and R-(+)-verapamil at LLOQ level (A) and a plasma sample obtained at 2 h after a single dose of 10 mg/kg racemic verapamil (B).

Figure 3

Representative HPLC chromatograms of blank plasma spiked with S-(−)- and R-(+)-verapamil at LLOQ level (A) and a plasma sample obtained at 2 h after a single dose of 10 mg/kg racemic verapamil (B).

Figure 4

Mean plasma concentration-time profile of S-(−)- and R-(+)-verapamil after oral (gavage) administration of 10 mg/kg racemic verapamil hydrochloride to Sprague-Dawley rats, (n = 6, mean ± SD).