A chiral HPLC-UV method for the quantification of dibenz[b,f]azepine-5-carboxamide derivatives in mouse plasma and brain tissue: eslicarbazepine acetate, carbamazepine and main metabolites

Abstract

For the first time, a selective and sensitive chiral HPLC-UV method was developed and fully validated for the simultaneous quantification of eslicarbazepine acetate (ESL), carbamazepine (CBZ), S-licarbazepine (S-Lic), R-licarbazepine (R-Lic), oxcarbazepine (OXC) and carbamazepine-10,11-epoxide (CBZ-E), in mouse plasma and brain homogenate supernatant. After the addition of chloramphenicol as the internal standard, samples were processed using an SPE procedure. The chiral chromatographic analysis was carried out on a LiChroCART 250-4 ChiraDex column, employing a mobile phase of water and methanol (88:12, v/v) pumped at 0.9 mL/min and the UV detector set at 235 nm. The assay was linear (r(2) ≥0.995) for ESL, CBZ, OXC, S-Lic, R-Lic and CBZ-E in the range of, respectively, 0.2-4, 0.4-30, 0.1-60, 0.2-60, 0.2-60 and 0.2-30 μg/mL, in plasma, and of 0.06-1.5 μg/mL for ESL, 0.12-15 μg/mL for CBZ and CBZ-E and 0.06-15 μg/mL for OXC and both licarbazepine (Lic) enantiomers in brain homogenate supernatant. The overall precision was within 8.71% and accuracy ranged from -7.55 to 8.97%. The recoveries of all the compounds were over 92.1%. Afterwards, the application of the method was demonstrated using real plasma and brain samples obtained from mice administered simultaneously with ESL and CBZ.