Abstract
This paper presents an overview on the current status of enantiomeric and diastereomeric separations of chiral antimalarials and derivatives by capillary electrophoresis (CE). The wide variety of chiral selectors which have been employed to resolve successfully antimalarial enantiomers: oligosaccharides (cyclodextrins, oligomaltodextrins), neutral (amylose, dextrin and dextran) and charged (chondroitin sulfate, heparin, dextran sulfate) polysaccharides and proteins are reviewed. Cyclodextrins were the most employed. Chiral additives added to the background electrolyte often facilitated separations of quinine/quinidine and cinchonine/cinchonidine diastereomers. However, in a few cases, using micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography or non aqueous CE, resolution of diastereomers could be achieved without additives. Quantitative applications of CE to the quality control of antimalarial drugs and their analysis in biological and food matrices are presented.