Capillary electrophoresis with laser-induced fluorescence in clinical drug development routine application and future...

The clinical bioanalytical setting is characterized by sample volumes of < 1 ml biological fluid (e.g. plasma, urine), a range of 3-4 decades of concentrations to be quantified and a limit of quantitation in the microg/l-ng/l range for sets of 100-5000 individual samples. Setup of capillary electrophoresis (CE) for routine application in this analytical field was successful for analytes accessible to fluorescence detection by using laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) detection. Empowerment of CE-LIF for routine serial analysis of thousands of samples includes improvement in autosampler techniques, thorough procedures for capillary treatment and particularly more advanced detection technology. Introduction of multi-capillary systems with charge-coupled device cameras and frequency doubled Ar-ion laser (lambda = 257 nm) offers this technique the chance of superiority over classical analytical assays - especially in the field of (new) low volume samples e.g. capillary blood or microdialysate encouraging clinicians to search for meaningful non-invasive samples.