Determination of binding constants for strong complexation by affinity capillary electrophoresis: the example of complexes of ester betulin derivatives with (2-hydroxypropyl)-γ-cyclodextrin.

Complexation plays an important role in many biological phenomena, the analysis of different samples, optimization of separation processes, and increasing the pharmacological activity of drugs. This paper discusses the features of using mobility shift affinity capillary electrophoresis for studying strong complexation. Electrophoretic peaks for this case are often triangular. It was shown that the use of electrophoretic mobility obtained from the peak apex time to calculate binding constants leads to significant systematic and random errors, and the parameter a of the Haarhoff-Van der Linde function should be used instead of the apex time. Distorted triangular peaks with dips were shown to be observed at too high a ratio of analyte concentration in the sample to ligand concentration in the background electrolyte, and the peaks and parameter a significantly shifted. It was found that the permissible excess of analyte concentration over ligand concentration was approximately 10-35, provided that the parameter a was used, but the peak shape should be used as a landmark, and only triangular peaks without dips should be fitted with the function. The lowest possible analyte concentration should be utilized, which allows the use of a wider range of ligand concentration leading to higher precision of determining the binding constants values. Kinetically labile 1:1 complexes between (2-hydroxypropyl)-γ-cyclodextrin (HP-γ-CD) and betulin 3,28-diphthalate (DPhB) and betulin 3,28-disuccinate (DScB) were studied as an example. The binding constant logarithms at 25 °C are 7.23 ± 0.03 and 7.13 ± 0.10 for the HP-γ-CD complexes of DPhB and DScB, respectively. Graphical Abstract.