Amino acid analysis by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. Automatic pre-column derivatization with activated carbamate reagent.

Succinimido alpha-naphthylcarbamate, an activated carbamate reagent, facilitated the simple and rapid pre-column derivatization of amino acids for fluorimetric detection. The method is based on the formation of naphthylcarbamyl derivatives of amino acids. The carbamylation of amino acids is completed within 1 min at room temperature, and the reaction mixture can be injected directly into a liquid chromatograph equipped with an octadecylsilyl reversed-phase column. The effluent stream is monitored fluorimetrically at 370 nm excited at 290 nm at the sub-picomole level. Naphthylcarbamyl derivatives of common protein amino acids were separated within 30 min by gradient elution with aqueous sodium acetate and acetonitrile. Excess of the reagent does not interfere with the analysis of amino acids, because it is hydrolysed in 2-3 min to give naphthylamine, which is more strongly retained than any amino acid derivatives.