Identification of Amino Acids on TLC Plates by a Novel Spray Reagent

Abstract

Spray reagents are very useful for detecting amino acids on thin layer chromatoplates. Although ninhydrin is most widely used as a spray reagent for identification of amino acids due to its high sensitivity but it produces same purple/violet color with all amino acids, except proline and hydroxyproline. To solve this color problem a new spray reagent, pyrrole-2-carbaldehyde has been introduced, which is capable of producing various distinguishable colors with moderately high sensitivity (0.20-5.0 µg). The reagent in combination with ninhydrin is also capable of developing several distinguishable colors with very high sensitivity (0.06-0.60 µg).