Construction of a chiral metal-organic framework material with triazole amino acid ligands and its application in capillary electrochromatography for enantioseparation

Gege Zhu; Dan Wu; Xinyu Li; Li Ge; Li Qi; Qin Chen; Bing Niu; Dan Zhong; Xiaodong Sun

doi:10.1016/j.chroma.2025.466177

Construction of a chiral metal-organic framework material with triazole amino acid ligands and its application in capillary electrochromatography for enantioseparation

J Chromatogr A. 2025 Jun 28:1758:466177. doi: 10.1016/j.chroma.2025.466177. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Gege Zhu¹, Dan Wu², Xinyu Li³, Li Ge⁴, Li Qi⁵, Qin Chen⁶, Bing Niu⁷, Dan Zhong⁸, Xiaodong Sun⁹

Affiliations

¹ Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Organ Repair, Joint International Research Laboratory of Biomaterials and Biotechnology in Organ Repair (Ministry of Education), School of Medicine, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, PR China. Electronic address: zhugege@shu.edu.cn.
² Department of Nephrology, First Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital, State Key Laboratory of Kidney Diseases, National Clinical Research Center for Kidney Diseases, Beijing Key Laboratory of Medical Devices and Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Drug Development for Severe Kidney Diseases, Beijing 100853, PR China. Electronic address: 876897257@qq.com.
³ Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Organ Repair, Joint International Research Laboratory of Biomaterials and Biotechnology in Organ Repair (Ministry of Education), School of Medicine, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, PR China. Electronic address: sue777@shu.edu.cn.
⁴ Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Organ Repair, Joint International Research Laboratory of Biomaterials and Biotechnology in Organ Repair (Ministry of Education), School of Medicine, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, PR China. Electronic address: 857555729@qq.com.
⁵ Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Organ Repair, Joint International Research Laboratory of Biomaterials and Biotechnology in Organ Repair (Ministry of Education), School of Medicine, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, PR China. Electronic address: ql7@shu.edu.cn.
⁶ Shanghai Key Laboratory of Bio-Energy Crops, School of Life Sciences, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, PR China. Electronic address: chenqincc@shu.edu.cn.
⁷ Shanghai Key Laboratory of Bio-Energy Crops, School of Life Sciences, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, PR China. Electronic address: bingniu@shu.edu.cn.
⁸ Shanghai Key Laboratory of Bio-Energy Crops, School of Life Sciences, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, PR China. Electronic address: zhongdan@shu.edu.cn.
⁹ Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Organ Repair, Joint International Research Laboratory of Biomaterials and Biotechnology in Organ Repair (Ministry of Education), School of Medicine, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, PR China; Shanghai Key Laboratory of Bio-Energy Crops, School of Life Sciences, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, PR China. Electronic address: sunxiaodong_cpu@163.com.

PMID: 40602012
DOI: 10.1016/j.chroma.2025.466177

Abstract

Chiral separation is vital in medicine because the two versions of a chiral drug can act differently, and one might cause toxicity. Therefore, efficient enantioseparation is essential in pharmaceutical quality control. In this study, we modified the amino site of l-lysine (L-Lys) with a triazole ring. The triazole amino acid ligand (NL) with self-assembly potential was designed independently. Then NLMOF was synthesized by coordination with Cu (II) under green ambient stirring conditions. The NLMOF (triazole-modified metal-organic framework) was uniformly integrated into a capillary column through a post-modification method and utilized in open tubular capillary electrochromatography (OT-CEC) for enantioseparation. 10 chiral amino acids and 1 chiral drug was successfully separated in NLMOF@OT-CEC method with excellent repeatability (RSD < 5 %) and stability (cycles > 100). Furthermore, when compared with similar MOFs (metal-organic frameworks) chiral stationary phase, NLMOF demonstrates advantages in terms of mild preparation conditions, cost-effectiveness, and environmental sustainability, making it a promising candidate for industrial-scale production.

Keywords: Capillary electrochromatography; Chiral separation; Metal-organic frameworks.