Stability-indicating capillary zone electrophoresis method for the assessment of recombinant human interleukin-11 and its correlation with reversed-phase liquid chromatography and biossay.

A stability-indicating capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) method was validated for the analysis of recombinant human interleukin-11(rhIL-11) using rupatadine fumarate, as internal standard (IS). A fused-silica capillary, (50 µm i.d.; effective length, 40 cm) was used at 25°C; the applied voltage was 20 kV. The background electrolyte solution consisted of 50 mmol L(-1) sodium dihydrogen phosphate solution at pH 3.0. Injections were performed using a pressure mode at 50 mbar for 45 s, with detection by photodiode array detector set at 196 nm. Specificity and stability-indicating capability were established in degradation studies, which also showed that there was no interference of the excipients. The method was linear over the concentration range of 1.0-300 µg mL(-1) (r(2)=0.9992) and the limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantitation (LOQ) were 0.2 µg mL(-1) and 1.0 µg mL(-1), respectively. The accuracy was 100.4% with bias lower than 1.1%. Moreover, the in vitro cytotoxicity test of the degraded products showed significant differences (p<0.05). The method was applied for the content/potency assessment of rhIL-11 in biopharmaceutical formulations, and the results were correlated to those of a validated reversed-phase LC method (RP-LC) and an TF-1 cell culture assay, showing non-significant differences (p>0.05). In addition the CZE and RP-LC methods were applied for the analysis of rhIL-11 in human plasma. Therefore, the proposed alternative method can be applied to monitor stability, to assure the batch-to-batch consistency and quality of the bulk and finished biotechnology-derived medicine.