Isolation, characterization, and synthesis of degradation products of methylprednisolone derivatives

Corticosteroids are important synthetically produced glucocorticoids used as anti-inflammatory drugs. Although the active pharmaceutical substances such as methylprednisolone derivatives have been on the market for many years, not much information is available in the literature regarding their degradation behaviors. During the course of our studies on polyfunctional molecules with biological activity, we have been interested in exploring the determination of possible degradation products of methylprednisolone hemisuccinate, and also their identification. These degradation products are interesting molecules from the pharmaceutical point of view, and are currently under biological evaluation. On the basis of fragmentation pathway and molecular weight obtained by LC-MS results, possible chemical structures can be proposed. Most of them are not sufficiently stable to be isolated, then only by synthesis it is possible to confirm the structures proposed by LC-MS results.