What is it about?
Numerous HPLC-based separations for Hg2+ and MeHg+ have been reported in the literature. While HPLC has also been employed to study the stability of thimerosal - which is a bactericidal that is used in vaccines - in aqueous solutions, the fate of this organomercury compound in the bloodstream is unknown. Likewise, the fate of phenylmercuric acetate, which is used in eye drops owing to its potent antimicrobial activity in the bloodstream is unknown. To probe the fate of the latter two organomercury compounds at near physiological conditions we developed a HPLC separation.
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Why is it important?
A HPLC-based separation of the mercury compounds of interest is important because it allows one to probe the stability of each compound under conditions that are physiologically relevant.
Perspectives
HPLC is a methodology which is ideally suited to probe the stability of compounds as their retention time is solely determined by the interactions between the intact molecule with the stationary and the mobile phase. A prerequisite for a compound to be 'observed' by HPLC is to retain it on any given HPLC column and to have evidence for the elution of the intact compound. We used a mercury-specific detector, namely a flame atomic absorption spectrometer to observe thimerosal and phenylmercuric acetate in the HPLC column effluent.
Dr Juergen Gailer
University of Calgary
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Retention behavior of Hg2+, MeHg+, thimerosal and phenylmercuric acetate on a C18 RP-HPLC column, Journal of Chromatography A, January 2025, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.chroma.2024.465546.
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