Determination of polyamines by liquid chromatography with aryl oxalate—sulphorhodamine 101 chemiluminescence detection

Abstract

A method for determination of polyamines based on liquid chromatography (LC) with aryl oxalate—sulphorhodamine 101 chemiluminescence detection is reported. Cadaverine, histamine, putrescine, spermine, spermidine, tyramine were separated on a Zorbax ODS column (250 × 4.0 mm i.d., 7 μm; Dupont) with methanol—acetonitrile—water (62.5 + 2.5 + 35.0, v/v) and chemiluminescence detection without derivatization. The detection limits (signal-to-noise ratio = 3) for putrescine, spermine and spermidine were 1.0 × 10 −9 M, for tyramine 5.0 × 10 −9 M and for histamine and cadaverine 7.0 × 10 −9 M (20-μl injection) with linear calibration up to 1.0 × 10 −4 M. The relative standard deviation ( n = 6) was 4.1% at 1.0 × 10 −7 M putrescine. The proposed LC method was applied to the determination of polyamines in tomatoes.