Reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic assay methods for the analysis of a range of penicillins in in vitro permeation studies

Abstract

Simple, rapid and selective HPLC methods have been developed for the analysis of amoxycillin, ampicillin, epicillin, mecillinam and propicillin. A Hypersil ODS 5 μm (150×4.6 mm I.D.) column was used with mobile phases containing aqueous phosphate buffers, pH 3–4.6 and either methanol or acetonitrile as the organic modifier. Samples were detected by their optimal UV absorption (210–230 nm). The lower limits of quantitation of the compounds (100 μl injection volume) were 0.1 μg/ml. The assays were linear in the range of 0.1–100 μg/ml with r 2 values greater than 0.99. The methods have been applied successfully for the measurement of the flux of the compounds across Caco-2 cells monolayers.