Separations of Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics by Reversed-Phase HPLC, using Sigma-Aldrich Supelco Discovery Columns

There are more than 100 antibiotics on the market today, and many more are in development. Resistance to antibiotics is a significant problem; an antibiotic that takes a decade to bring to market can induce resistance within months of its introduction into clinical practice. Therefore, it is critical to monitor the level of antibiotics given to humans and animals and HPLC is a powerful tool for isolation and quantification of such. Antibiotics from the fluoroquinolone subclass were studied and separated by reversed-phase HPLC on Discovery RP-AmideC16, Discovery C18, and Discovery C8 columns.