High-performance liquid chromatography of chalcones: Quantitative structure-retention relationships using partial least-squares (PLS) modeling

In this study, the multivariate partial least squares projections to latent structures (PLS) technique was used for modeling the RP-HPLC retention dat a of 17 chalcones, which were determined with methanol-water mobile phases of different compositions. The PLS model was based on molecular descriptors which can be calculated for any compound utilizing only the knowledge of i ts molecular structure. The PLS analysis resulted in a model with the follo wing statistics: r = 0.976, Q = 0.933, s = 0.076, and F = 43.63. The adequa cy of the developed model was assessed by means of cross-validation and als o, by PLS modeling of the retention data of several chalcones reported by W alczak et al. [J. Chromatogr. 353, 123, (1986)], which were obtained using stationary phases of different polarity (-NH2, DIOL, -CN, ODS, C-8). The st ructural interpretation of the developed PLS model was accomplished by mean s of comparative correlations between the nonempirical descriptors used in the model and the solvation parameters developed by Abraham. The results ob tained in this work provides evidence for the great potential of the topolo gical approach for the development of quantitative structure-retention rela tionship (QSRR) models.