Sustainable Liquid Chromatographic Determination and Purity Assessment of a Possible Add-on Triple-Action Over-the-counter Pharmaceutical Combination in COVID-19

Green analytical chemistry metrics for evaluating the greenness of analytical procedures

Green analytical chemistry (GAC) focuses on mitigating the adverse effects of analytical activities on human safety, human health, and environment. In addition to the 12 principles of GAC, proper GAC tools should be developed and employed to assess the greenness of different analytical assays. The 15 widely used GAC metrics, i.e., national environmental methods index (NEMI), advanced NEMI, assessment of green profile (AGP), chloroform-oriented toxicity estimation scale (ChlorTox Scale), Analytical Eco-Scale, Green Certificate Modified Eco-Scale, analytical method greenness score (AMGS), green analytical procedure index (GAPI), ComplexGAPI, red-green-blue (RGB) additive color model, RGB 12 algorithm, analytical greenness calculator (AGREE), AGREE preparation (AGREEprep), HEXAGON, and blue applicability grade index (BAGI), are selected as the typical tools. This article comprehensively presents and elucidates the principles, characteristics, merits, and demerits of 15 widely used GAC tools. This review is helpful for researchers to use the current GAC metrics to assess the environmental sustainability of analytical assays.

A novel stability-indicating chromatographic quantification of the antiparkinsonian drug safinamide in its pharmaceutical formulation employing HPTLC densitometry and ion-pair HPLC-DAD

Parkinson's disease (PD) emerges as a notable health concern among the elderly population. Safinamide mesylate (SAF) is a novel and emerging add-on therapy in PD treatment. The stability of innovative drug formulations and the development of appropriate stability-indicating methods are of great importance to modern pharmaceutical analysis. The current work has established novel comprehensive stability-indicating chromatographic approaches, HPTLC coupled with densitometric quantification and HPLC-DAD, for the selective assay of SAF in pharmaceutical formulation along with its synthetic precursor impurity; 4-hydroxy benzaldehyde (4-HBD) in presence of its stress induced degradation products. The stability of SAF was investigated under different stress conditions. It was found that SAF is likely to undergo acid, base hydrolysis, and oxidative degradation. Using mass spectrometry and infrared spectroscopy, the structures of the forced degradation products were confirmed and elucidated. The dissolution behavior of Parkimedine® Tablets was also monitored in the FDA suitable medium. Multiple assessment tools were used to evaluate the environmental sustainability of the proposed methods and the reported one. The greenness tools included Complex-GAPI and AGREE metrics. In addition, the innovative concepts of "blueness" and "whiteness" evaluation were incorporated through the newly introduced BAGI and RGB12 algorithms, respectively.

Comprehensive analysis of Aspirin and Apixaban: thedevelopment, validation, and forced degradation studies of bulk drugs and in-house capsule formulations using the RP-HPLC method

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to develop a robust Reverse Phase-High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (RP-HPLC) method for simultaneous determination of Aspirin (ASP) and Apixaban (API) in bulk and in-house capsule formulations.

METHODS

The separation was conducted on a Phenomenex Luna C18 column using a Shimadzu LC20AT High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system. The mobile phase consisted of 40:60 Acetonitrile (ACN): phosphate buffer (pH 4) modified by O-Phosphoric Acid (OPA). The parameters included a flow rate of 1 ml/min, a column temperature of 30°C, and Ultra-Violet (UV) detection at 227 nm. Method validation encompassed linearity, precision (Intraday and Interday), accuracy (% Recovery), and sensitivity (Limit of Detection (LOD) and Limit of Quantification (LOQ)). Stability testing followed The International Council for Harmonization (ICH) guidelines.

RESULTS

The developed method demonstrated reliable separation of Aspirin and Apixaban with retention times of 5.37 min and 7.10 min, respectively. It exhibited linearity over the concentration ranges of 50-300 μg/mL for Aspirin and 5-15 μg/mL for Apixaban. The recovery percentage ranged from 90.02% to 101% for Aspirin and 98.18% to 101.18% for Apixaban. LOD and LOQ were determined as 0.84 μg/mL and 2.55 μg/mL for Aspirin, and 0.41 μg/mL and 1.24 μg/mL for Apixaban, respectively. Stability testing confirmed the method's robustness under various stress conditions.

CONCLUSIONS

The validated RP-HPLC method offers a reliable tool for routine analysis of Aspirin and Apixaban in pharmaceutical formulations, highlighting its potential for combined dosage applications and routine quality control.

Sustainable chromatographic quantitation of multi-antihypertensive medications: application on diverse combinations containing hydrochlorothiazide along with LC-MS/MS profiling of potential impurities: greenness and whiteness evaluation

Cardiovascular disorders are among the leading causes of death worldwide, especially hypertension, a silent killer syndrome requiring multiple drug therapy for appropriate management. Hydrochlorothiazide is an extensively utilized thiazide diuretic that combines with several antihypertensive drugs for effective treatment of hypertension. In this study, sustainable, innovative and accurate high performance liquid chromatographic methods with diode array and tandem mass detectors (HPLC-DAD and LC-MS/MS) were developed, optimized and validated for the concurrent determination of Hydrochlorothiazide (HCT) along with five antihypertensive drugs, namely; Valsartan (VAL), Amlodipine besylate (AML), Atenolol (ATN), Amiloride hydrochloride (AMI), and Candesartan cilextil (CAN) in their diverse pharmaceutical dosage forms and in the presence of Chlorothiazide (CT) and Salamide (DSA) as HCT officially identified impurities. The HPLC-DAD separation was achieved utilizing Inertsil ODS-3 C18 column (250 × 4.6 mm, 5 μm) attached with photodiode array detection at 225.0 nm. Gradient elution was performed utilizing a mixture of solvent A (20.0 mM potassium dihydrogen phosphate, pH 3.0 ± 0.2, adjusted with phosphoric acid) and solvent B (acetonitrile) at ambient temperature. Linearity ranges were 0.1-100.0 µg/mL for HCT, VAL, AML and CAN, 0.05 -100.0 µg/mL for both ATN and AMI and 0.05-8.0 µg/mL for both CT and DSA. Additionally, this work describes the use of liquid chromatography-electrospray-tandem mass spectrometry for the accurate detection and quantification of the impurities; CT and DSA in the negative mode utilizing triple quadrupole mass spectrometry. The linearity ranges for those impurities were 1.0-200.0 ng/mL and 5.0-200.0 ng/mL for CT and DSA, respectively. Developed methods' validation was achieved in accordance with International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) guidelines. Upon applying liquid chromatographic techniques for the drug analysis, a green and sustainable assessment have to be handled due to the consumption of energy and many solvents. Through the use of the HEXAGON, Analytical Greenness (AGREE) and White Analytical Chemistry (WAC) tools, greenness and sustainability have been statistically assessed. The optimized HPLC-DAD and LC-MS/MS methods were fast, accurate, precise, and sensitive, and consequently could be applied for conventional analysis and quality control of the proposed drugs in their miscellaneous dosage forms for the purpose of reducing laboratory wastes, time of the analysis time, effort, and cost.

Aspirin triggers ferroptosis in hepatocellular carcinoma cells through restricting NF-κB p65-activated SLC7A11 transcription

A number of studies have shown that aspirin, as commonly prescribed drug, prevents the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Ferroptosis as a dynamic tumor suppressor plays a vital role in hepatocarcinogenesis. In this study we investigated whether aspirin affected ferroptosis in liver cancer cells. RNA-seq analysis revealed that aspirin up-regulated 4 ferroptosis-related drivers and down-regulated 5 ferroptosis-related suppressors in aspirin-treated HepG2 cells. Treatment with aspirin (4 mM) induced remarkable ferroptosis in HepG2 and Huh7 cells, which was enhanced by the ferroptosis inducer erastin (10 μM). We demonstrated that NF-κB p65 restricted ferroptosis in HepG2 and Huh7 cells through directly binding to the core region of SLC7A11 promoter and activating the transcription of ferroptosis inhibitor SLC7A11, whereas aspirin induced ferroptosis through inhibiting NF-κB p65-activated SLC7A11 transcription. Overexpression of p65 rescued HepG2 and Huh7 cells from aspirin-induced ferroptosis. HCC patients with high expression levels of SLC7A11 and p65 presented lower survival rate. Functionally, NF-κB p65 blocked the aspirin-induced ferroptosis in vitro and in vivo, which was attenuated by erastin. We conclude that aspirin triggers ferroptosis by restricting NF-κB-activated SLC7A11 transcription to suppress the growth of HCC. These results provide a new insight into the mechanism by which aspirin regulates ferroptosis in hepatocarcinogenesis. A combination of aspirin and ferroptosis inducer may provide a potential strategy for the treatment of HCC in clinic.

Ecofriendly chromatographic estimation of spasmolytic pharmaceutical mixture along with official toxic impurity, 3,5-dichloroaniline: Complete green profile appraisal

Nowadays, Green Analytical Chemistry is widely applied to provide various analytical methods with eco-friendly procedures employing the least toxic, harmful reagents on humans and the environment without affecting the efficacy of the determination. Accordingly, two eco-friendly, accurate, and reliable high-performance thin-layer chromatography-densitometry and high-performance liquid chromatographic methods were established for the determination and separation of two antispasmodic drugs, namely phloroglucinol and trimethylphloroglucinol in their pure, combined dosage form along with phloroglucinol toxic impurity, 3,5-dichloroaniline. For high-performance thin-layer chromatography-densitometry, efficient separation was developed via utilizing the stationary phase of high-performance thin-layer chromatography silica gel 60 F₂₅₄ plates and developing a system comprising of ethyl acetate-butanol-ammonia in the ratio of 8.0:2.0:0.2, by volume and scanning of the developed bands at 210.0 nm. The subsequent method is isocratic high-performance liquid chromatography with diode array detection in which separation was successively attained using XTerra RP-C₁₈ (250 × 4.6 mm, 5 μm) column as stationary phase and methanol-10.0 mM phosphate buffer, pH 3.7 ± 0.1 as mobile phase in the ratio of 75.0:25.0, v/v at flow rate 1.0 ml/min and scanning at 220.0 nm. The developed liquid chromatography methods were validated according to the International Council for Harmonization guidelines, and all results acknowledged their efficacy. Additionally, the proposed methods worked well for assessing the cited drugs in binary combined commercially available pharmaceutical formulation. The greenness profile of the present methods was assessed and estimated using various assessment tools, namely; Green Analytical Procedure Index, analytical eco-scale method, National Environmental Method Index in addition to Analytical GREEnness tool to evaluate the greenness of the provided methods with a statistical comparison between them to assess the more green ones.

Eco-friendly resolution of spectrally overlapping signals of a combined triple-action over-the-counter pharmaceutical formulation for symptomatic management of COVID-19 pandemic: application to content uniformity testing

Currently, all researchers are concentrating their efforts on countering the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of patients are managed at home, according to recent statistics. An OTC triple action combination comprising paracetamol (PAR), aspirin (ASP), and diphenhydramine (DIPH) is commonly given for pain relief, fever control, and as a night-time sleep aid. This combination is currently recommended for COVID-19 patients as part of symptomatic treatment and management. In this work, three smart, simple, accurate, eco-friendly, and cost-effective spectrophotometric methods are developed for simultaneous determination of PAR, ASP, and DIPH in their combined over-the-counter caplet dosage form without any prior separation steps. The first method is the first derivative spectrophotometry (D¹) which determined PAR at 259.7 nm. The second one is the dual-wavelength in ratio spectra (DWRS) for determination of ASP at 214.1 and 220.1 nm after using 10.0 μg/mL of PAR as a divisor, where PAR was a constant, and the wavelengths difference equal to zero for DIPH. The third method is the double divisor-ratio difference spectrophotometric one (DD-RD) which was based on using the sum of 15.0 µg/mL of each of PAR and ASP as a double divisor, and the difference in amplitudes was measured at two wavelengths ∆P_{(214.5–226.0)} for determination of DIPH. The developed methods have been validated as per ICH guidelines. Furthermore, the three suggested methods were employed successfully to assay marketed pharmaceutical formulation and to investigate the content uniformity of the dosage units in accordance with the United States Pharmacopeia's guidelines. Finally, the greenness profile of the proposed methods was assessed and compared with the reported method using the analytical eco-scale system, national environmental method index (NEMI), green analytical procedure index (GAPI), and analytical greenness (AGREE) metric. The results from the proposed methods statistically agreed with those obtained by the reported one, with no significant differences in accuracy and precision.