Chirality has many important roles in life activities because enzymes, amino
acids, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, fats, metabolic intermediates, and many other types
of biomolecules are chiral. Due to the different properties of enantiomers, chirality is
important in biological systems, and it is also critically important in many other fields,
such as the pharmaceutical industry, chemical industry, petrochemical industry, food
industry, and agrochemicals, particularly, medicine. Roughly 56% of the
pharmaceuticals currently in use are chiral, and 88% of these are administered in
racemic proportions, while single-enantiomer formulations of some marketed drugs
have shown the higher potency of one stereoisomer compared to the other. Although
they have the same chemical structures, most of the enantiomers present in racemic
drugs have different pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic, biological, and toxic effects.
The amounts of chiral molecules in different matrices are far below the levels required
for the analysis of pharmaceutical preparations. Therefore, high resolution and
sensitivity are needed to analyze chiral molecules. Mass spectrometers, which
generally offer higher levels of sensitivity than conventional detection systems and
accordingly allow the analysis of lower levels of analytes, have made large
contributions to separation and detection science. Developments in new types of
columns, different analysis modes, different matrices, and pharmaceutics will be
explored in this chapter. The parameters will be discussed with the pros and cons
together with their applicability to different sample types.
Keywords: Bioanalysis, Biological Material, Chiral Analysis, Chiral Columns, Chirality, Enantiomers, ESI, GC-MS, IM-MS, LC-MS, Mass Spectrometer, MS/MS, Pharmaceutical Preparation, Plasma, QTOF-MS.
