Mixed-mode chromatography with zwitterionic phosphopeptidomimetic selectors from Ugi multicomponent reaction

• New stationary phases based on zwitterionic amido-aminophosphonic acid derived ligands.
• Ligands obtained by combinatorial chemistry using Ugi multicomponent reaction and immobilized by thiol-ene click chemistry.
• Flexible adjustment of binding increments and tailoring of selectivity via selection of residues of educts.
• Resultant mixed-mode stationary phases are useful for reversed-phase LC and HILIC separations.
• PCA score plot reveals complementary retention profiles as compared to various common stationary phases.

In the present contribution a novel Ugi multicomponent reaction (MCR) was used to generate zwitterionic chromatographic selectors with capability for application in mixed-mode chromatography featuring complementary selectivities in reversed-phase (RP) and hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC). Aminophosphonate zwitterionic chromatographic ligands were synthesized adopting a one pot microwave assisted three-component UGI-MCR synthesis and, after purification, were immobilized by thiol-ene click chemistry on silica beads. Chromatographic characteristics of these stationary phases were evaluated by variation of experimental conditions for a set of diverse analytes with neutral, acidic, basic and zwitterionic character revealing the presence of multimodal retention capabilities (i.e. tunable retention increments from ion exchange, hydrophobic and hydrophilic interaction were observed). To further investigate and classify the retention properties of the novel stationary phases we performed a comparative chromatographic study with commercially available mixed mode, HILIC and RP columns. The resultant chromatographic data were analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA). PCA revealed that the new reversed-phase/zwitterionic ion-exchangers (RP/ZWIX) are complementary to common RP, HILIC and mixed-mode phases on the market and could be a promising alternative in impurity profiling and 2D-HPLC concepts. Moreover, the adopted synthetic approach offers the capability to generate chemical diversity simply by the variation of the starting aldehyde, aminophosphonic acid and/or isonitrile components. This unique characteristics offer great possibility for the design of novel selectors for mixed mode chromatography like RP/ZWIX, HILIC, affinity and chiral chromatography.