HPLC electrochemical fluorometric detection of amino acids including tryptophan using...

It has been shown that by electrochemical oxidation 7-nitrobenzo-2-oxa-1,3-diazole-tryptophan (NBD-T) is converted to fluorophores having the same emission and excitation spectra as those for other NBD-amino acids. NBD-dioxindolylalanine was tentatively assumed to be a main electrochemical oxidation product of NBD-tryptophan. A coulochemical cell placed between an analytical column and a fluorometer showed no detrimental effect on the separation of NBD-amino acids by reversed phase HPLC. Highly sensitive fluorescence detection was achieved for amino and imino acids at 10-100 fmol levels. The detection limit for tryptophan was 50 fmol.