Reverse injection capillary electrophoresis UV detection for serotonin quantification in human whole blood.

We describe the first capillary electrophoresis UV detection method to measure serotonin in human whole blood (WB). Procedural parameters such as concentration and pH of run buffer and injection mode were investigated. The reverse injection allows to decrease the analysis time by injecting samples at the outlet end of the silica capillary close to the detection window, so reducing the migration distance. Thus, when a capillary with an effective length of 10 cm and a 400 mmol/L Tris phosphate as background electrolyte at pH 3.25 was used, the migration time of the serotonin peak was 2.6 min. These conditions gave a good reproducibility of migration times (CV, 0.77%) and peak areas (CV, 2.44%). Intra- and inter-assay CV were 3.85% and 7.32%, respectively, and the analytical recovery was between 96.8% and 99.4%.