Abstract
A method employing capillary electrophoresis (CE) with tandem mass spectrometry (MS) has been developed for the simultaneous determination, on one hand, of zidovudine (AZT) with stavudine (d4T), and on the other hand, of lamivudine (3TC) with a didanosine metabolite (ddA), four potent human immunodeficiency virus reverse transcriptase (RT-HIV) inhibitors. The influence of several parameters (pH and ionic strength of volatile formic acid-ammonia buffer) as well as the influence of magnesium cation upon electroosmotic flow, electrophoretic mobility and peak efficiency has been studied. The limit of detection (LOD) by this method is 2.5 ppb for AZT and 20 ppb for d4T, 2 ppb for ddA and 5 ppb for 3TC, respectively. This paper illustrates the current importance in CE-ESI/MS/MS technique as a complementary or substituted method to measure levels (at ng/mL) of anti-HIV drugs alone or in combination.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Support of this reasearch by a grant from the Agence Nationale de Recherches sur le SIDA (ANRS, France) and a grant from SIDACTION (France) is gratefully acknowledged.