Effect of micelles and mixed micelles on efficiency and selectivity of antibiotic-based capillary electrophoretic enantioseparations.

Vancomycin (an oligophenolic, glycopeptide, macrocyclic antibiotic) has been shown to be a superb chiral selector for anionic and neutral compounds. It was found that adding sodium dodecyl sulfate to the run buffer increased efficiency by over 1 order of magnitude, decreased analysis times, and reversed the elution order of the enantiomers. This allows for control of the retention order as well as the resolution of enantiomers in complex mixtures in a single run. A mechanism is proposed which explains all of the observed effects and is verified experimentally. Since vancomycin is present in both the micelle and in free solution, previously proposed micelle-selector models are, at best, limiting cases. A general equation is derived which can be used to describe all possible interactions, including those with the capillary wall, if needed. Also, it is shown that electrophoretic mobilities and not migration times must be used to calculate binding constants of a solute to the micelle, the chiral selector, or both. Furthermore, it is shown that a neutral marker molecule cannot be used to accurately correct mobilities that have been altered due to changes in solution viscosity. While this work utilizes the practical vancomycin-micelle system, the general conclusions and theory apply to most other analogous CE systems as well.