New high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the detection of picolinic acid in biological fluids

A HPLC method is described to quantify picolinic acid in milk, blood serum and tissue culture supernatant. The method requires very little sample prep aration because acid precipitation allows total recovery of picolinic acid. High specificity and sensitivity were obtained using ion-pair chromatograp hy on a C-18 reversed-phase column with tetrabutylammonium hydrogen sulfate as ion pairing reagent. We describe the conditions for the automated testi ng of multiple samples and for the detection of L-tryptophan and L-kynureni ne together with picolinic acid. This system will be utilized to elucidate the relationship between picolinic acid production and human disease. Furth ermore, we provide the first evidence of picolinic acid in human blood seru m. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.