Application of capillary electrophoresis with laser-induced fluorescence detection to the determination of biogenic amines and amino acids in brain microdialysate and homogenate samples

A procedure is described to derivatize 16 primary-amine-containing biogenic amines and amino acids in brain mixtures with the fluorogenic reagent 5-fu roylquinoline-3-carboxaldehyde (FQ). These FQ-tagged compounds in the brain sample were resolved in less than 16 min based on micellar electrokinetic chromatography and laser-induced fluorescence. There was a linear relations hip between the concentration of analyte and the fluorescence intensity, wi th correlation coefficients in the range of 0.96-1.00. The utility of this method for the quantification of the important inhibitory neurotransmitter gamma -aminobutyric acid in microdialysates and brain homogenates from rats is illustrated. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.