Separation of amino acids, peptides and corresponding Amadori compounds on a silica column at elevated temperature

Maillard reaction of glucose with amino acids and peptides has become a very important experimental model in the food flavor and pharmaceutical industries for better understanding the mechanism of food flavor generation and drug stability. Because of the amino acid and sugar functional groups present in their structures, most of the reaction components formed during the initial stages of Maillard reaction as well as the substrates are relatively polar. These compounds are poorly retained on a conventional reversed phase column. While polar stationary phases like HILIC column do provide better retention for these polar components, method selectivity could still be a challenge due to the structural similarity between these analytes. In this report, parameters such as pH, mobile phase composition and temperature were investigated using different brands of bare silica columns in order to separate glycine (G), diglycine (DG), triglycine (TG), and the corresponding Amadori compounds of glucose-glycine (GG), glucose-diglycine (GDG) and glucose-triglycine (GTG). An excellent separation for glycine, glycine peptides and their Amadori compounds was obtained on a bare silica column at an elevated temperature.