Penicillin drugs such as Penicillin G and Penicillin V can be hydrolyzed to form penicilloic acid during storage or transportation due to various reasons including the following: (1) the temperature is too high; (2) the solution pH is not optimal for stabilization; or (3) the sample contains lactamase. The hydrolyzed penicillin drug molecule is thermodynamically more stable than the non-hydrolyzed one but completely inactive in antimicrobial functions.
The Penicillin Drug Stability Test Kit (Catalog number PST100) provides a reagent that quickly detects the hydrolyzed form of penicillin drugs including the commonly used Penicillin G and Penicillin V. The assay reagent, Dye PST, interacts with alpha-amino acids which are the hydrolysis products of penicillin drugs and generates fluorescence at 535 nm with excitation wavelength at 485 nm. The background signal with the non-hydrolyzed penicillin drugs is very low. The kit can be used to detect hydrolysis of penicillin drugs. It can also be used to detect the lactamase activity using penicillin as a substrate.
Each kit (Catalog number PST100) contains 0.5 ml of the 10 x PST dye. It is for 100 assays using 96-well plates or micro-cuvettes.
PROTOCOL
The penicillin drug solution and buffer should not contain EDTA, DTT, amino acids or other strong metal chelators or thiols.
Standard curve for hydrolyzed and non-hydrolyzed Penicillin V
(1) Prepare 2-fold serial dilution of Penicillin V and its hydrolysis product, phenoxymethylpenicilloic acid, starting from a 1 mg/ml solution in 10 mM HEPES buffer, pH 8.0. Prepare the 1 x PST dye by dilution of the 10 x PST dye 10-fold with water. Note: Phenoxymethylpenicilloic acid is commercially available.
(2) Mix 100 µl of the drug sample with 50 µl of the 1 x PST dye for 2 min.
(3) Read the fluorescence at 535 nm with excitation at 485 nm. Plot the correlation between the drug concentration and fluorescence values.
Data Analysis
Plot the fluorescence intensity Fc and the hydrolyzed penicillin concentration [Hydrolyzed penicillin] to generate the linear standard curve.
Fc = a [Hydrolyzed penicillin] + b
Where the Fc values are from experimental data, the a and b values are from the linear fitting between the Fc values and the Hydrolyzed penicillin concentrations.
Detection of Penicillin V hydrolysis
Follow the same procedure to measure the fluorescence intensity Fc values from the unknown samples. Calculate the hydrolyzed penicillin concentrations in the unknown samples using the Fc values from the unknown samples and the a and b values from the standard curve.