Quantification of oligopeptide-20 and oligopeptide-24 in cosmetic creams using hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

Peptides are a very popular category of cosmetic ingredients covering a wide range of applications in cosmetics. Hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography is promising for the analysis and separation of such polar substances. In this work, the chromatographic behaviour of oligopeptide-20 and oligopeptide-24 was initially investigated on a zwitterionic ZIC (R)-HILIC analytical column under isocratic elution with UV detection. Then, a hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography with positive ion electrospray mass spectrometric assay was developed and validated for the quantitation of these peptides in cosmetic creams. All analytes were separated by using a polymeric zwitterionic ZIC (R)-pHILIC analytical column (150.0 x 2.1 mm i.d., particle size 3.5 mu m, 200 angstrom) with isocratic elution. The mobile phase was composed of a 28% 32.5 mM ammonium formate water solution pH 9.5 in acetonitrile and pumped at a flow rate of 0.25 mL min(-1). A run time of less than 11 min for each sample made it possible to analyze a large number of samples per day. This is the first reported application of hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography in the simultaneous determination of oligopeptide-20 and oligopeptide-24 in cosmetic creams and it can be used to support routine quality control of these products