D-L amino acid analysis using automated precolumn derivatization with 1-fluoro-2,4-dinitrophenyl-5-alanine amide.

An automated procedure for the precolumn derivatization of enantiomeric amino acid mixtures with 1-fluoro-2,4-dinitrophenyl-5-alanine amide and a liquid chromatographic method for the separation of the derivatives with UV detection are reported. The system described allows to perform routine analyses using microbore columns with a sensitivity at the picomol level. Improvements for the use of this reagent in the protocol of a subtractive Edman degradation procedure of peptides to determine the sequence position of amino acid residues with concomitant identification of their chirality are also described.