Fingerprint analyses of plant and animal tissues with respect to the occurrence of foreign compounds.

Glass capillary chromatography can be used for the characterization of complex mixtures of plant and animal samples after clean-up by counter-current distribution. For good reproducibility of fingerprint patterns a special splitless injection system is used. This method prevents any loss at injection. In order to determine organochlorine substances also in trace amounts (a few pg) an electroncapture detector (ECD) was used. Each step in the analysis procedure was checked with the aid of radioactively labelled substances, e.g. the polar compound pentachlorophenol and the non-polar compound hexachlorobenzene. With the aid of capillary chromatography-mass spectrometry substances in complex mixtures in a concentration of 10 to 100 ng/microliters can be characterized. Suitable glass capillaries for these investigation were prepared in this laboratory. The results indicate that a standardization of the procedure is practicable.