Multi-Dimensional HPLC Analysis of Metabolic Related Chiral Amino Acids -Method Development and Biological/Clinical Applications-

Abstract

The existence of d-amino acids in mammals has been increasingly reported, and clarified that d and l enantiomers have different biol. functions, distributions and metabolic pathways. Some d-amino acids were also reported to have a correlation with diseases, and the screening of biomarkers based on quant. enantioselective metabolomics is highly expected. However, the amts. of most d-amino acids, esp. the metabolic-related chiral amino acids, are usually at trace levels in biol. samples. Therefore, highly selective and sensitive anal. methods are essential for their accurate detn. In this focusing review, multi-dimensional high-performance liq. chromatog. (HPLC) systems for the precise detn. of metabolic-related chiral amino acids are introduced with their application to biol. samples. For the highly-sensitive detn., target amino acids were precolumn-derivatized with 4-fluoro-7-nitro-2,1,3-benzoxadiazole (NBD-F). The multi-dimensional HPLC systems were composed of a reversed-phase column in the 1st dimension and an enantioselective column in the 2nd dimension. By using these systems, various proteinogenic amino acids were clearly obsd. in the tissues and physiol. fluids of rodents. The existence of metabolic-related chiral amino acids in various biol. samples were also elucidated. [on SciFinder(R)]