Plasma amino-acid determinations by reversed-phase HPLC: Improvement of the orthophthalaldehyde method and comparison with ion exchange chromatography

Abstract

Reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatographic (RPHPLC) determination of amino-acids with on-line pre-column ortho-phthalaldehyde (OPA) derivatization and fluorescence detection is rapid and sensitive. However, high-performance ionexchange chromatography (HP-IEC) with post-column ninhydrine reaction is the most widely used amino-acid (AA) assay for biological samples. These two methods have been compared for the determination of individual plasma AA concentrations