High-performance liquid chromatographic separation and measurement of various biogenic compounds possibly involved in the pathomechanism of Parkinson's disease.

The work presented here describes an optimised, reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic (RP-HPLC) method for separating 46 biogenic compounds, which, as neurotoxins or as their precursors or derivatives, may be relevant in the pathomechanism of Parkinson's disease. In some cases, the physico-chemical properties of these substances are very similar, in other cases they differ greatly. In order to facilitate their detection in one chromatographic run, ion-pair chromatography was uniquely combined with a gradient elution. A diode array or a dual wavelength detector was used in combination with a fluorescence detector to verify the identity of the compounds.