A procedure for comparing the mobilities of unlabeled drugs used in microelectrophoresis experiments.

A novel method for comparing the absolute mobilities of unlabeled compounds released from micropipettes in microelectrophoresis experiments is described. The method is based on the principle that the introduction of a "foreign" ion into an electrolyte reduces the transport number of a "reference" ion present in the electrolyte. Using [14C]-noradrenaline as the "reference" ion, the mobilities of two "foreign" ions, methoxamine and phenylephrine, were compared. No significant difference was found between the mobilities of the two drugs. It was concluded that the two drugs probably have similar transport numbers when released from solutions of equal molarity in microelectrophoresis experiments in vivo, and thus the previously reported difference between the apparent potencies of the two drugs is presumably of biological origin. The method described here may be of use in comparing the mobilities of other compounds, the radiolabeled forms of which are either unavailable or prohibitively expensive.