Determination of biologically active low-molecular-mass thiols in human blood. III. Highly sensitive narrow-bore isocratic reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection.

The fast isocratic narrow-bore reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic method employing fluorescence detection is described for the precise reproducible simultaneous measurement of total homocysteine, cysteine and glutathione in human blood. Sample preparation involves conversion of disulfides to free thiols with triphenylphosphine, precipitation of proteins with sulfosalicylic acid, and conjugation of thiols with monobromobimane. Optimized sample preparation conditions as well as chromatographic conditions allowed to obtain reliable quantitative results within the concentration range corresponding to the levels of these thiols in human blood in norm and pathology. The detection limit was approximately 70 amol for all labeled aminothiols. The proposed method for these compounds analysis includes simple sample preparation, high selectivity, good linearity (r2>0.998), high reproducibility (within-run precision for derivatized aminothiol peaks area RSD<1.8% for three times consequently injected sample); high reliability and the small sample volume (1 microl) required for analysis make it suitable for clinical studies.