Chiral surfactants in micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography

Most biologically active molecules contain one or more chiral centres, giving rise to stereoisomeric forms which can behave differently in a chiral environment. Thus, only one of the enantiomers may show the desired physiological activity, whereas the other enantiomers may either be considerably less active or even show undesireable side effects. Establishing that a chiral drug consists of one single enantiomer is nowadays essential before it can be given to patients. Analytical tools that can discriminate between enantiomers play a very important role in determining the stereoisomeric composition of chiral molecules. Until recently chromatographic techniques were the most popular for enantiomeric separations. The increased use of capillary electrophoresis (CE) has provided complementary methodology for chiral discrimination. One mode of CE that has been used for this purpose is micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography (MECC), where natural or synthetic chiral surfactants are added to the separation buffer.