Simultaneous determination of purity and potency of the components of gentamycin using high-performance liquid chromatography

The quality of some earlier developed antibiotics is usually ensured by the combination of HPLC purity and microbiological potency measurement in the pharmacopoeias of various countries because the relationship between their purity and potency is not clearly quantified.  Due to potency is assessed using certain units of measurement, it can not be directly traced to the international system of units (SI unit).  This has become a hotspot in the study of the quantitative relationship between purity and potency of antibiotics.  It would be quite an achievement to simultaneously determine both purity and potency using HPLC methods during quality control.  This study evaluated a multicomponent antibiotic product, gentamycin, as a test sample.  First, pure samples of the C components of gentamycin: C_1a, C₂, C_2a and C₁ were prepared, separately.  Second, quantitative relationship (theoretical potency) between the purity and potency of each C component of gentamycin were determined using ¹H NMR, HPLC-ELSD and microbiological assay method.  One milligram of gentamycin C_1a, C₂, C_2a and C₁ was equal to 1 286.98, 1 095.74, 1 079.52 and 739.61 gentamycin units, respectively.  Finally, a method for the determination of gentamycin potency was established based on the proportion and content of C components of gentamycin.  The unification of purity and potency for gentamycin was achieved using only HPLC-ELSD.  It is also demonstrated that C components of gentamycin and micronomicin produce the same responses under ELSD, which means that it is not necessary to prepare separate reference standards for each C component of gentamycin and that quantitative testing can be performed accurately using only one micronomicin reference standard.  This study simplified the previous method for the determination of the content of C components of gentamycin using HPLC-ELSD.  The developed method is suitable for regular use as a part of quality control and can simplify the rigmarole quality control procedures provided in current pharmacopeias.