Off-line and in-line determination of catechol- O-methyltransferase activity in a capillary electrophoretic system

The use of capillary electrophoresis for the determination of catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) activity with dihydroxybenzoic acid as a substrate was investigated. Both an off-line and in-line capillary electrophoresis determination of COMT activity was developed and the two approaches are discussed. In the presented methods, substrate and reaction products are monitored at the same time. The initial velocity of the reaction is quantified spectrophotometrically by the corrected peak area of the products at 200 nm. In the off-line setup, capillary zone electrophoresis is used to separate and quantify the different reaction compounds. Each electrophoretic run required only 37 nL of the enzymatic reaction solution. Based on the off-line assay, an in-line determination of COMT activity was developed by a methodology known as electrophoretically mediated microanalysis (EMMA). All the different steps (i.e. mixing, incubation, separation and in-line quantitation) are combined in the capillary, which is used as a microreactor for the enzymatic reaction. Full automation of the assay is achieved with this microscale approach.