Chiral resolution of basic drugs by capillary electrophoresis with new glycosaminoglycans.

New glycosaminoglycans, fucose-containing glycosaminoglycan (FGAG) and depolymerized holothurian glycosaminoglycan (DHG), were investigated as chiral additives for the separation of drug enantiomers by capillary electrophoresis. The average molecular masses of FGAG and DHG were estimated to be about 59,000 and 14,000, respectively. A variety of basic drug enantiomers were resolved using 10 mM phosphate buffer, pH 5.0, containing 3% FGAG or DHG. Since chiral recognition properties of FGAG and DHG are different, some drug enantiomers were only separated by using FGAG or DHG. With regard to comparison of chiral recognition abilities of FGAG and DHG with other chiral selectors, tolperisone and eperisone enantiomers were not separated with alpha- or beta-cyclodextrin, or heparin as the chiral additives, but were separated with FGAG and DHG. The results obtained reveal that FGAG and DHG are useful as the chiral selectors for separations of drug enantiomers by CE, and that they could be complementarily used with other chiral additives.