Development, optimization, and validation of a microplate bioassay for relative potency determination of linezolid using a design space concept, and its measurement uncertainty

Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop, optimize, and validate a microplate bioassay for relative potency determination of linezolid in pharmaceutical samples using quality-by-design and design space approaches. In addition, a procedure is described for estimating relative potency uncertainty based on microbiological response variability. The influence of culture media composition was studied using a factorial design and a central composite design was adopted to study the influence of inoculum proportion and triphenyltetrazolium chloride in microbial growth. The microplate bioassay was optimized regarding the responses of low, medium, and high doses of linezolid, negative and positive controls, and the slope, intercept, and correlation coefficient of dose-response curves. According to optimization results, design space ranges were established using: (a) low (1.0 μg/mL), medium (2.0 μg/mL), and high (4.0 μg/mL) doses of pharmaceutical samples and linezolid chemical reference substance; (b) Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 653 in an inoculum proportion of 10%; (c) antibiotic No. 3 culture medium pH 7.0 ± 0.1; (d) 6 h incubation at 37.0 ± 0.1°C; and (e) addition of 50 μL of 0.5% (w/v) triphenyltetrazolium chloride solution. The microplate bioassay was linear (r2 = 0.992), specific, precise (repeatability RSD = 2.3% and intermediate precision RSD = 4.3%), accurate (mean recovery = 101.4%), and robust. The overall measurement uncertainty was reasonable considering the increased variability inherent in microbiological response. Final uncertainty was comparable with those obtained with other microbiological assays, as well as chemical methods.