Profiling and screening analysis of 27 aromatic amino acids by capillary electrophoresis in dual modes

An efficient capillary electrophoretic (CE) profiling and screening system based on dual modes of capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) and micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography (MEKC) was developed for the simultaneous determination of 23 nonprotein amino acids (NPAAs) and 4 protein amino acids with aromatic moiety. It involves separation by an uncoated fused-silica capillary under phosphoric acid buffer in CZE mode and by another uncoated fused-silica capillary under neutral sodium dihydrogen phosphate buffer containing sodium dodecyl sulfate in MEKC mode. Migration orders of the amino acids studied on the two separation modes under each optimum condition were very different. The repeatability of migration times measured by the CZE and MEKC was found to be better than 4.8 and 3.4%, respectively, thereby enabling to cross-check the identification of each amino acid. The method linearity and limit of detection of the CZE for each amino acid were found to be adequate for the assay of aromatic amino acids. When the present CE profiling and screening analysis in dual modes was applied to plant seeds, NPAAs such as mimosine from Mimosa pudica Linné, and 2-phenylglycine from Lindera erythrocarpa Makino were positively detected along with tryptophan, phenylalanine and tyrosine.