Capillary electrophoresis in anti-cancer metallodrug research: advances and future challenges

An efficient and convenient separation method has been a long sought after goal for anti-cancer metallodrug developers. For many reasons, capillary electrophoresis (CE) has recently emerged as the method of choice for the separation of intact platinum metal complexes and their metabolites, assessment of drug stability, and studying the interaction of the administered and potential tumor-inhibiting metallocomplexes with biomolecules. Due to the application of gentle separation conditions and successful developments in combinations with molecule-specific detectors, CE is also growing in importance as a versatile tool for the characterization of specific metal-bioligand binding products and thereby for providing mechanism-of-action information. Recent advances in metallodrug monitoring by CE are reviewed and critically evaluated. Likewise, the current limitations of CE in the field, such as the lack of assays involving individual proteins and targeting real-world biological samples, are brought into focus. Further strategies for method's refinement in anti-cancer metallodrug research that should ultimately take place along these lines and result in the development of high-throughput screening CE systems in the near future are finally discussed.