Development of a capillary electrophoretic method for the analysis of amino acids containing tablets

Ketosteril is an enteral medicinal product indicated for prevention and therapy in chronic renal insufficiency in connection with a low protein diet. Tablets of Ketosteril contain five essential amino acids like: Lys, His, Thr, Trp, Tyr and another five amino acids in the form of their hydroxy and keto analogues as calcium salts, that are: α-ketoleucine, α-ketoisoleucine, α-ketovaline, α-ketophenylalanine and α-hydroxymethionine. The composition of Ketosteril tablets is routinely tested with three LC methods. Capillary electrophoretic method seems to be a good alternative for amino acids and their analogues determination in multicomponent pharmaceuticals because of short analysis time and the possibility to assay all components during a single run without any pretreatment. Electrophoresis was performed in 50 μm I.D. fused-silica capillaries with 65 cm distance to the detector. Capillaries were installed in Waters Quanta 4000 electrophoretic equipment with a positive power supply and on-line UV detection at 214 nm. Separations were done in a buffer containing 40 mM Tris and 160 mM boric acid titrated with NaOH to pH 10. The method developed allows the separation of all investigated analytes with an efficiency of n=230 000 and 20 min analysis time. The method was applied for determination of all components of Ketosteril in commercial tablets.