Separation of drugs by capillary electrophoresis, Part 10. Permethyl-alpha-cyclodextrin as chiral solvating agent.

Following the German-Chinese Drug Screening Program, 86 racemic drugs were investigated in capillary zone electrophoresis in the presence of the chiral solvating agent (CSA) hexakis-(2,3,6-tri-O-methyl)-alpha-cyclodextrin (TM-alpha-CD). Of the 86 drugs, 23 were separated into enantiomeric pairs. A comparison of the migration separation factors (alpha(m)) and the migration retardation factors (Rm) with previously published data for native alpha-CD revealed that the 'upper-rim' hydroxyl groups do not necessarily facilitate the recognition of the drug enantiomers by the chiral host. In contrast, an overall increase in affinity for the permethylated host led to a higher rate of successful enantiomer separations. A key substructure (4H) was identified in the analyte structure domain, with a crucial influence on the behavior of a particular drug.