Improvement of chemical analysis of antibiotics. V. A simple method for the analysis of tetracyclines using reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography.

An isocratic high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the determination of tetracyclines is described using a mobile phase containing oxalic acid and C8- and C18-modified silica gel columns. For good separations of tetracyclines, oxalic acid concentrations of above 0.01 and 0.2 M respectively for parent tetracyclines (group I) and impurities in tetracycline (group II) are required. The optimum pH of the aqueous oxalic acids solution in the mobile phase is 2.0. The combinations of the C8-modified silica gel column with methanol-acetonitrile-0.01 M aqueous oxalic acid solution pH 2.0 (1:1.5:5) and the C18-modified silica gel column with methanol-acetonitrile-0.2 M aqueous oxalic acid solution pH 2.0(1:1:3.5) gave satisfactory results for groups I and II, respectively.