Enantiorecognition of triiodothyronine and thyroxine enantiomers using different chiral selectors by HPLC and micro-HPLC.

This paper deals with the chiral separation of triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4) by HPLC and micro-HPLC. The separation of T3 and T4 is of great pharmaceutical and clinical interest, since the enantiomers exhibit different pharmacological activities. The HPLC measurements were performed on a chiral stationary ligand-exchange phase using l-4-hydroxyproline bonded via 3-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane to silica gel as a selector. Also a chiral teicoplanin (Chirobiotic) phase was used. In micro-HPLC the chiral separation behaviour of l-4-hydroxyproline, and of the macrocyclic antibiotics teicoplanin and teicoplanin aglycone was investigated for the enantioseparation of T3 and T4. l-4-Hydroxyproline was bonded to 3 microm and the glycopeptide antibiotics were bonded to 3.5 microm silica gel and separations were accomplished by microbore HPLC columns (10 cmx1 mm I.D.). With both techniques and all chiral selectors investigated T3 and T4 were baseline resolved. micro-HPLC was found to be superior to analytical HPLC with respect to low consumption of packing material, mobile phase and analyte.