Benzoylation of sugars, polyols and amino acids in biological fluids for high-performance liquid chromatographic...

A precolumn benzoylation for analyzing sugars, polyols and neutral amino acids in biological fluids by high-performance liquid chromatography has been developed, which avoids protein precipitation, drying procedures and the use of pyridine. Derivatization and chromatography can be performed within one hour with a minimum detectable quantity of ca. 1 pmol (signal-to-noise ratio > 2). The derivatization products of glucose, mannitol and neutral amino acids were identified by electrospray mass spectrometry (ES-MS) to be tetra- and pentabenzoyl glucose, penta- and hexabenzoyl mannitol and 2-phenyl-5-benzoyloxyoxazoles, respectively.