SUMMARYThe individual enantiomers of racemic drugs frequently differ in their biological effects. For pharmacological studies of such drugs there is therefore a need for an effective means of separating and quantifying the enantiomers in biological samples. As their physicochemical properties are similar, the assay of enantiomers is generally regarded as difficult, time-consuming and error-prone. However, recent developments in high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) chiral stationary phase technology overcome some of these problems and provide a more efficient and reliable way of assaying enantiomeric drugs.
I N T R O D U C T I O NMany of the most widely prescribed drugs (warfarin, dysopyramide, ibuprofen, /I-blockers etc.) contain a chiral carbon (also called an asymmetric centre or a chiral centre), i.e. a carbon atom that has four different groups attached. For a drug that possesses a single chiral carbon, a pair of enantiomers (non-superimposable mirror image isomers, also called optical isomers or optical antipodes) exists. However, in most cases such drugs are administered in man as a racemic mixture (or a racemate), i.e. as a mixture of each enantiomer. Individual enantiomers of a racemic drug (also called an enantiomeric drug or a chiral drug) rotate the plane of polarized light in equal but opposite directions and are said to be optically active. A racemic mixture on the other hand is optically inactive because the optical activity of one enantiomer is counteracted by that of the other.Although the majority of the chiral drugs contain one asymmetric carbon, there are some which contain either more than one chiral carbon (e.g. an antifungal drug, griseofulvin, contains two chiral carbons), or contain chiral atoms other than carbon, for example, the anticancer drug cyclophosphamide contains chiral phosphorus in a hetercyclic ring system. Figure 1 shows the structures of some drugs which contain asymmetric atoms.The two enantiomers of a racemic drug frequently differ from one another in pharmacological properties. In most cases one of the enantiomers tends to be much more active than the other. The other enantiomer can be harmful, have totally different
313