Determination of amino acids in rat brain microdialysate with 1,2,5,6-dibenzocarbazole-9-ethyl chloroformate as labeling reagent by high performance liquid chromatographic fluorescence detection and mass spectrometric identification

A high performance liquid chromatography method for the determination of 20 amino acids (AAs), using 1,2,5,6-dibenzocarbazole-9-ethyl chloroformate (DBCEOC–Cl) as a novel fluorescent labeling reagent, has been developed and applied for the analysis of AAs in rat brain microdialysate. The simultaneous separation of 20 AA derivatives was achieved on a Hypersil BDS C18 column with gradient elution. And the identification of AA derivatives was carried out by on-line electrospray ionization mass spectrometry in positive ion mode. The AA derivatives were detected with excitation and emission at 300 nm and 395 nm, respectively. Excellent linear responses were observed with coefficients of >0.9988. The detection limits ranged from 0.217 to 4.75 nmol/L, at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3. The intra-day and inter-day precision for each AA was <3.2% and <4.3%, respectively. The mean recoveries for all AAs studied were in the range of 92.5–105.6%. Good compositional data could be obtained from as little as 15 μL of microdialysate. Facile DBCEOC–Cl derivatization coupled with high performance liquid chromatography and fluorescence detection allowed the development of a highly sensitive method for the quantitative analysis of trace levels of AAs from microdialysate.