Box–Behnken design directed optimization for sensitivity assessment of anti-platelet drugs

Optimization of electrospray ionization (ESI) parameters is routinely carried out by one factor at a time (OFAT) or auto-tune software (ATS). Design of experiments (DOE) approach has been reported to be an excellent alternative to OFAT or ATS. Box–Behnken Design (BBD) was successfully used to optimize ESI parameters like nebulizing gas flow rate, desolvation line temperature, heat block temperature, and drying gas flow rate for [M + H]⁺ intensity of Clopidogrel bisulfate (CLP) and Ticlopidine (TLP). BBD model was found to be significant with p < .0001 for both CLP and TLP. The predicted and optimized (OL) ESI parameters were used for chromatographic analysis and were compared against three levels of ESI parameters, i.e. low level (LL), medium level (ML), and high level (HL). The OL ESI parameters were subjected to chromatographic analysis and its mean peak area was significantly higher than mean peak area for LL, ML, and HL ESI in case of CLP and TLP (p < .001). However, no significant difference was observed between the mean peak area for ML and OL of TLP. Thus, BBD can be considered with 29 trials to optimize four mass spectrometric parameters. The liquid chromatographic parameters percentage of methanol, percentage of formic acid and flow rate were also optimized using BBD. However, the optimized method did not significantly influence the peak response over the non-optimized method.