Appraisal of four pre-column derivatization methods for the high-performance liquid chromatographic determination of free amino acids in biological materials

Abstract

Reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) is a powerful method for assaying physiological amino acid concentrations in biological fluids. Four pre-column derivatization methods, with o-phthaldialdehyde (OPA), 9-fluoronylmethyl chloroformate (FMOC-Cl), phenyl isothiocyanate (PITC) and 1-dimethylaminonaphthalene-5-sulphonyl chloride (dansyl-Cl), were assessed with respect to their applicability in biological research. The methods permit the measurement of 21–26 major amino acids in 13–40 min. The superior sensitivity favours the use of OPA, FMOC-Cl and dansyl-Cl techniques. Because of instability of the OPA adducts, automated on-line derivatization is required when using this method is general practice. Application of the PITC method, although less sensitive, is useful in clinical chemistry, where sample availability is rarely a problem. Cystine determination is not feasible when using OPA or FMOC-Cl and with PITC the reproducibility and linearity are poor, whereas the dansyl-Cl method allows reliable quantitation. The four methods are currently used to perform ca. 8000 OPA and 5000–6000 FMOC-Cl, PITC and dansyl-Cl analyses of biological samples per year. The results obtained with the RP-HPLC methods compare favourably with those derived from conventional ion-exchange amino acid analyses. When the guard column is regularly changed after 120 analyses, the separation remains satisfactory for at least 700 OPA, 800 FMOC-Cl, 150 PITC and 500 dansyl-Cl analyses. Careful control of factors and limitations inherent in the various methodologies is a prerequesite for proper identification and appropriate quantitation.