Comparison of three development approaches for Stationary Phase Optimised Selectivity Liquid Chromatography based screening methods Part II: A group of structural analogues (PDE-5 inhibitors in food supplements)

Three approaches for the development of a screening method to detect adulterated dietary supplements, based on Stationary Phase Optimised Selectivity Liquid Chromatography were compared for their easiness/speed of development and the performance of the optimal method obtained. This comparison was performed for a heterogeneous group of molecules, i.e. slimming agents (Part I) and a group of structural analogues, i.e. PDE-5 inhibitors (Part II). The first approach makes use of primary runs at one isocratic level, the second of primary runs in gradient mode and the third of primary runs at three isocratic levels to calculate the optimal combination of segments of stationary phases. In each approach the selection of the stationary phase was followed by a gradient optimisation. For the PDE-5 inhibitors, the group of structural analogues, only the method obtained with the third approach was able to differentiate between all the molecules in the development set. Although not all molecules are baseline separated, the method allows the identification of the selected adulterants in dietary supplements using only diode array detection. Though, due to the mobile phases used, the method could also be coupled to mass spectrometry. The method was validated for its selectivity following the guidelines as described for the screening of pesticide residues and residues of veterinary medicines in food.