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

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. An excellent correlation (p ≤ 0.003) was found between the results given by an RP-HPLC system (Varian) and a classical AA autoanalyser (Biotronik LC 5001). Most AA concentrations were similar with the two methods, but a paired t-test showed slight differences for 13 AA. The within-batch reproducibility of the RPHPLC method was comparable to that of the HP-IEC method. The analysis was about three times faster with RP-HPLC, and sensitivity was l00-fold better. However, aspartic acid, proline and cysteine were not identified by the RP-HPLC method, while the tryptophan quantification is possible. RP-HPLC with automated pre-column OPA derivatization is clearly a suitable alternative for assaying physiological AA and may be particularly useful for AA present at low concentrations (free tryptophan, plasma 3-methylhistidine).