Determination of cysteine in human plasma by high-performance liquid chromatography and ultraviolet detection after pre-column derivatization with 2-chloro-1-methylpyridinium iodide

This paper describes the development and validation of a reversed-phase HPLC method with isocratic conditions for the analysis of total cysteine in human plasma. The essential steps in the assay include derivatization of cysteine via thiol group with 2-chloro-1-methylpyridinium iodide (CMPI), separation of the formed cysteine S-pyridinium derivative from endogenous thiol derivatives, usually present in biological samples, by ion-pair reversed-phase HPLC, and ultraviolet detection. Free cystine and protein-bound cysteine are converted to their reduced counterpart by the use of 2-mercaptoethanol. The standard curve is linear over the concentration range from 20 to 300 nmol ml(-1). The recoveries are from 93.9 to 105.9% and imprecision was at most 2.5%. Optimal conditions are determined for all steps of the analytical procedure.     

Fluorometric determination of thiol redox state

This work presents a fluorometric thiol redox state (TRS) method based on the thiol-specific fluorescent probe monobromobimane. It determines the concentrations of non-protein (NP) thiols glutathione, cysteine and N-acetylcysteine, the protein (P) thiols, as well as the contribution of these components to symmetric and mixed disulfides (NPSSR, NPSSC, NPSSCAc, PSSR, PSSC, PSSCAc, PSSP). The method is very sensitive since it measures as low as 30 pmol -SH groups in samples with a minimum of 1–5 mg total protein, making possible the measurement of oxidative stress–related TRS components even in biological fluids such as cerebrospinal. Electronic supplementary material Supplementary material is available for this article at and accessible for authorised users.     

Simultaneous determination of total homocysteine,cysteine, glutathione,and N‐acetylcysteine in brain homogenates by HPLC

We have developed a simple, fast, accurate, and cheap method for the simultaneous determination of total cysteine, homocysteine, glutathione, and N‐acetylcysteine in brain homogenates based on the reduction of disulfide bonds by tris(2‐carboxyethyl) phosphine, pre‐column derivatization of free thiol groups with 2‐chloro‐1‐methylquinolinium tetrafluoroborate followed by ion‐pair reversed‐phase high‐performance liquid chromatography separation with ultraviolet detection. The separation of thiol derivatives was achieved in 10 min. Linearity was observed in the range of 10–300, 0.7–10, 2–30, and 3–20 μmol/L homogenate with a limit of detection of 3.7, 0.2, 0.8, and 1.2 μmol/L homogenate for cysteine, homocysteine, glutathione, and N‐acetylcysteine, respectively. The precision, calculated as relative standard deviation, was in the range of 1.21–4.77, 1.53–14.35, 0.47–1.92, and 1.61–8.95% for cysteine, homocysteine, glutathione, and N‐acetylcysteine, respectively. The presented method was successfully applied to the selective determination of total amino thiols in pig brain tissue samples.     

Simple,Rapid, and Sensitive Determination of Thiols by Liquid Chromatography with Fluorescence Detection

Thiol compounds are important for protecting cells from oxidative stress. One common method of quantifying thiols is liquid chromatographic separation with fluorescence detection of their derivatives. The pH and the concentration of tris (2-carboxyethyl) phosphine hydrochloride in the reaction medium were shown to have significant effects on the fluorescence intensity of five thiol compounds: cysteine, glutathione, and three phytochelatins. The optimal pH range for derivatization, as indicated by the maximum fluorescence intensities, was 7.75–8.0 for all of the evaluated thiols. The thiol derivative fluorescence increased and then decreased with the tris (2-carboxyethyl) phosphine hydrochloride concentration. In particular, the fluorescence intensities of all of the derivatives decreased by 96.5–99.9% when tris (2-carboxyethyl) phosphine hydrochloride levels were increased from 0.1 to 1?mmol L^?1. We attributed these changes to preferential interactions between tris (2-carboxyethyl) phosphine hydrochloride and the thiol-specific fluorophore, monobromobimane. We describe herein a method, based on our optimized solution pH and tris (2-carboxyethyl) phosphine hydrochloride concentration, that is rapid (12?min) and boasts excellent recovery (91.3–102%), sensitivity (limit of detections, 17.8–75.2?pmol L^?1) and precision (relative standard deviation values ≤1.03%) for the quantification of these thiol compounds in microalgal samples.     

Coordination chemistry of the antitumor metallocene molybdocene dichloride with biological ligands

The relative affinity of molybdocene dichloride (Cp(2)MoCl(2)) for the thiol, amino, carboxylate, phosphate(O) and heterocyclic(N) donor ligands present in amino acids and nucleotides, has been studied in aqueous solutions at pH 2-7, using (1)H, (13)C and (31)P NMR spectroscopy. Molybdocene dichloride forms the highly water soluble, air-stable complexes Cp(2)Mo(Cys)(2) and Cp(2)Mo(GS)(2) with cysteine and glutathione respectively, via coordination of the deprotonated thiol groups. While coordination to the imidazole nitrogen in histidine was observed, no evidence for coordination of the amino or carboxylate groups in the amino acids cysteine, histidine, alanine or lysine to Cp(2)MoCl(2) was detected. Competition experiments with dAMP, ribose monophosphate and histidine showed preferential coordination to the cysteine thiol over the phosphate(O) and heterocyclic(N) groups. Cp(2)Mo(Cys)(2) is stable in the presence of excess dAMP or ribose monophosphate and Cys displaces coordinated histidine, dAMP or ribose monophosphate to give Cp(2)Mo(Cys)(2). These results provide further evidence against interaction with DNA as the key interaction that is related to the antitumor activity of molybdocene dichloride. The implications of these results for the biological activity of the antitumor metallocene and the likely species formed in vivo are discussed.     

Voltammetric Determination of Surface‐Confined Biomolecules with N‐(2‐Ethyl‐ferrocene)maleimide

A thiol‐specific electroactive cross‐linker, N‐(2‐ethyl‐ferrocene)maleimide (Fc‐Mi), has been used to tag surface‐confined peptides containing cysteine residues or oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) whose 3′ ends have been modified with thiol groups. The peptides studied herein include both the oxidized and reduced forms of glutathione and a hexapeptide. Cyclic voltammograms (CVs) of the Fc‐Mi groups attached to the surfaces were used to quantify the total number of cysteine residues that are tagged and/or can undergo facile electron transfer reactions with the underlying electrodes. A quartz crystal microbalance was used in conjunction with CV to estimate the total number of cysteine groups labeled by Fc‐Mi per peptide molecule. By comparing to mass spectrometric studies, it is confirmed that not all of the Fc‐Mi linked to the cysteine groups can participate in the electron transfer reactions. The methodology is further extended to the determination of ODN samples in a sandwich assay wherein the thiol linker on the 3′ end can be tagged with Fc‐Mi. The analytical performance was evaluated through determinations of a complementary ODN target and targets with varying numbers of mismatching bases. ODN samples as low as 10 fmol can be detected. Such a low detection level is remarkable considering that no signal amplification scheme is involved in the current method. The approach is shown to be sequence‐ and/or structure‐specific and does not require sophisticated instrumentation and complex experimental procedure.     

Quantification of Intracellular Thiols by HPLC-Fluorescence Detection

Biothiols, such as cysteine and glutathione, play important roles in various intracellular reactions represented by the redox equilibrium against oxidative stress. In this study, a method for intracellular thiol quantification using HPLC-fluorescence detection was developed. Thiols were derivatized with a thiol-specific fluorescence derivatization reagent, viz. ammonium 7-fluoro-2,1,3-benzoxadiazole-4-sulfonate (SBD-F), followed by reversed-phase separation on an InertSustain AQ-C18 column. Six different SBD-thiols (homocysteine, cysteine, cysteinylglycine, γ-glutamylcysteine, glutathione, and N-acetylcysteine as an internal standard) were separated within 30 min using a citric buffer (pH 3.0)/MeOH mobile phase. The calibration curves of all the SBD-thiols had strong linearity (R² > 0.999). Using this developed method, the thiol concentrations of human chronic myelogenous leukemia K562 cell samples were found to be 5.5–153 pmol/1 × 10⁶ cells. The time-dependent effect of a thiol scavenger, viz. N-ethyl maleimide, on intracellular thiol concentrations was also quantified. This method is useful for elucidating the role of intracellular sulfur metabolism.     

Electrochemical evaluation of avidin-biotin interaction using N-iodoacetyl-N-biotinylhexylenediamine

The avidin-biotin assay was investigated by an electrochemical procedure based on the chemical reaction between cysteine containing a thiol group and N-iodoacetyl-N-biotinylhexylenediamine (IB). In the presence of avidin and biotin this reaction, whereby the thiol group combines with IB, is controlled because IB has a biotin part; that is, avidin and biotin are detected indirectly by measurement of iodide ion or cysteine. To achieve a high sensitivity of detection, Hg(II) was introduced as a marker that interacts with cysteine and the oxidation peak from Hg(0) to Hg(II) was measured. The sensitivity of detection of avidin was at the level of 10⁻⁹ M. The relative standard deviation at 1 × 10⁻⁸ M avidin was 4.8% (n = 5). On the other hand, a response curve to detect biotin was obtained by the competitive reaction between IB and biotin for the limited binding sites of avidin. The change in peak current enables the detection of biotin at the level of 10⁻⁹ M. This method has the advantage that it is not necessary to separate free IB from bound IB.     

Capillary zone electrophoresis for analysis of phytochelatins and other thiol peptides in complex biological samples derivatized with monobromobimane

A new method to improve the analysis of phytochelatins and their precursors (cysteine, gamma-Glu-Cys, and glutathione) derivatized with monobromobimane (mBrB) in complex biological samples by capillary zone electrophoresis is described. The effects of the background electrolyte pH, concentration, and different organic additives (acetonitrile, methanol, and trifluoroethanol) on the separation were studied to achieve optimum resolution and number of theoretical plates of the analyzed compounds in the electropherograms. Optimum separation of the thiol peptides was obtained with 150 mM phosphate buffer at pH 1.60. Separation efficiency was improved when 2.5% v/v methanol was added to the background electrolyte. The electrophoretic conditions were 13 kV and capillary dimensions with 30 cm length from the inlet to the detector (38 cm total length) and 50 microm inner diameter. The injection was by pressure at 50 mbar for 17 s. Under these conditions, the separation between desglycyl-peptides and phytochelatins was also achieved. We also describe the optimum conditions for the derivatization of biological samples with mBrB to increase electrophoretic sensitivity and number of theoretical plates. The improved method was shown to be simple, reproducible, selective, and accurate in measuring thiol peptides in complex biological samples, the detection limit being 2.5 microM glutathione at a wavelength of 390 nm.     

Synthesis of Peptide Cysteine Dimedone Using Fmoc-Cys(Dmd)-OH: Glutathione Cysteine Dimedone as a Probe in Investigating the Sulfenic Acid Mediated Oxidation of Glutathione

Dimedone is the most widely used chemical probe for detection of cysteine sulfenic acid in peptides and proteins. The reaction of dimedone with cysteine sulfenic acid results in the formation of unique cysteine dimedone motif containing thioether bridge. Based on the structure of cysteine dimedone residue in polypeptide, a new building block of Fmoc-Cys(Dmd)-OH was developed for solid phase synthesis of peptide cysteine dimedone. Mass spectrometric sequencing of synthetic peptides have confirmed successful incorporation of cysteine dimedone in peptide chain using HBTU/HOBt as a coupling agent. The new method permits synthesis of peptides containing both cysteine thiol and cysteine dimedone in the same sequence which was difficult to achieve by conventional methods. The synthetic peptide of glutathione cysteine dimedone was used as a standard in probing the air-mediated oxidation of thiol to disulfide form of glutathione. The co-elution of standard peptide and reaction mixture of oxidation of glutathione in presence of dimedone using RP-HPLC have confirmed the formation of glutathione cysteine sulfenic as an intermediate in the air-mediated oxidation of glutathione. The synthetic peptides of cysteine dimedone may find application in the field of redox proteomics and generation of antibodies against modified cysteine residue.     

The determination of thiol groups in polysulfide prepolymers by infrared spectrometry

Methods for the determination of thiol groups (0.5–6% w/w) in polysulfide prepolymers and formulated polysulfide sealants by computer-assisted infrared spectrometry are discussed. The weak SH absorption near 2460 cm^?1 is inhanced by digital manipulation, and a combination band near 2650 cm^?1 can be used as an internal standard over the range 0–% thiol. Direct analysis of condensed-phase samples gives satisfactory results for pure prepolymers, but for formulated sealant prepolymers there is interference from fillers. Such formulations are first dissolved in chloroform and centrifuged to remove slids. The results are slightly affected by the prepolymer resin concentration, and the alcohol stabiliser in the chloroform may alter the internal standard band by shifting the baseline. Both these factors must therefore be controlled. The solution method is suitable for the analysis of aged uncured sealant prepolymers as well as fresh material. Computer control of the spectrophotometer provides results in about 3 min, exclusive of sample preparation time.     

Determination of zinc in pharmaceutical products by use of a sequential injection analysis system

A sequential injection analysis (SIA) system is proposed for the determination of zinc in pharmaceutical samples. The method is based on the spectrophotometric detection of zinc using xylenol orange as a colour reagent at 568 nm. The system can be used to monitor zinc at a frequency of 30 samples h(-1) with an average recovery of +/-98.5% and a relative standard deviation of less than 1%. A linear relationship between peak height and zinc concentration is obtained between 10 and 60 mg L(-1). The results obtained are in good agreement with those obtained by use of a standard method.     

An effective real-time colorimeteric sensor for sensitive and selective detection of cysteine under physiological conditions

In this contribution, a new, real-time and sensitive colorimetric sensor, di-N-methyl-N-hydroxyethylaniline squaraine (SQ), has been identified and synthesized for cysteine analysis based on its ΔA in neutral aqueous medium (pH ≈ 7.5). The proposed method was applied to analyse synthetic amino acid samples and human serum samples. The results show that the linear range of cysteine detection in aqueous medium at pH ≈ 7.5 is 10~700 nmol L(-1) with a correlation coefficient (R) of 0.9984 and a limit of detection (3σ, n = 20) of 3.9 nmol L(-1). The relative standard deviation (RSD) for cysteine detection was lower than 4.1% (n = 5). The proposed method possesses the advantages of simplicity, rapidity, high selectivity and sensitivity. This makes it possible, for the first time, the real-time detection of cysteine under normal physiological conditions.     

Preparation of highly hydrophilic magnetic nanoparticles with anion‐exchange ability and their application for the extraction of non‐steroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs in environmental samples

Diallyldimethylammonium chloride modified magnetic nanoparticles were synthesized by the “thiol‐ene” click chemistry reaction. Diallyldimethylammonium chloride rendered the material plenty of quaternary ammonium groups, and thus the excellent aqueous dispersibility and anion‐exchange capability. The novel material was then used as the magnetic solid‐phase extraction sorbent to extract eight non‐steroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs from water samples. Combined with high‐performance liquid chromatography and ultraviolet detection, under the optimal conditions, the developed method exhibited wide linearity ranges (1–1000, 2–1000, and 5–1000 ng/mL) with recoveries of 88.0–108.6% and low limits of detection (0.3–1.5 ng/mL). Acceptable precision was obtained with satisfactory intra‐ and inter‐day relative standard deviations of 0.4–4.4% (n = 3) and 1.1–5.5% (n = 3), respectively. Batch‐to‐batch reproducibility was acceptable with relative standard deviations <9.7%. The hydrophilic magnetic nanoparticle featured with quaternary ammonium groups showed high analytical potential for acidic analytes in environmental water samples.     

Selective in vitro glycosylation of recombinant proteins: semi-synthesis of novel homogeneous glycoforms of human erythropoietin

BACKGROUND: A natural glycoprotein usually exists as a spectrum of glycosylated forms, where each protein molecule may be associated with an array of oligosaccharide structures. The overall range of glycoforms can have a variety of different biophysical and biochemical properties, although details of structure-function relationships are poorly understood, because of the microheterogeneity of biological samples. Hence, there is clearly a need for synthetic methods that give access to natural and unnatural homogeneously glycosylated proteins. The synthesis of novel glycoproteins through the selective reaction of glycosyl iodoacetamides with the thiol groups of cysteine residues, placed by site-directed mutagenesis at desired glycosylation sites has been developed. This provides a general method for the synthesis of homogeneously glycosylated proteins that carry saccharide side chains at natural or unnatural glycosylation sites. Here, we have shown that the approach can be applied to the glycoprotein hormone erythropoietin, an important therapeutic glycoprotein with three sites of N-glycosylation that are essential for in vivo biological activity. RESULTS: Wild-type recombinant erythropoietin and three mutants in which glycosylation site asparagine residues had been changed to cysteines (His(10)-WThEPO, His(10)-Asn24Cys, His(10)-Asn38Cys, His(10)-Asn83CyshEPO) were overexpressed and purified in yields of 13 mg l(-1) from Escherichia coli. Chemical glycosylation with glycosyl-beta-N-iodoacetamides could be monitored by electrospray MS. Both in the wild-type and in the mutant proteins, the potential side reaction of the other four cysteine residues (all involved in disulfide bonds) were not observed. Yield of glycosylation was generally about 50% and purification of glycosylated protein from non-glycosylated protein was readily carried out using lectin affinity chromatography. Dynamic light scattering analysis of the purified glycoproteins suggested that the glycoforms produced were monomeric and folded identically to the wild-type protein. CONCLUSIONS: Erythropoietin expressed in E. coli bearing specific Asn-->Cys mutations at natural glycosylation sites can be glycosylated using beta-N-glycosyl iodoacetamides even in the presence of two disulfide bonds. The findings provide the basis for further elaboration of the glycan structures and development of this general methodology for the synthesis of semi-synthetic glycoproteins.     

Determination of different forms of aminothiols in red blood cells without washing erythrocytes

Detection and quantification of different aminothiols forms (reduced and total) in biological fluids are important for the investigation of oxidative stress‐related diseases and cell homeostasis study. The aim of this study was to optimize a HPLC method in order to determine both reduced and total thiol forms in red blood cells (RBC) at low temperature without washing erythrocytes. Analytical recoveries for total and reduced thiols were 91.6–98.5 and 94.9–98.2% respectively. The relative standard deviations intra‐assay for total and reduced thiols were 1.14–3.64 and 0.83–2.3% respectively and the relative standard deviations inter‐assay for total and reduced thiols were 1.12–3.54 and 0.84–2.03%, respectively. This method allows specific analysis of the aminothiol state inside the RBC, as a model of intracellular metabolism functioning. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spectrofluorimetric determination of cysteine by 5-maleimidyl-2-(m-methylphenyl)benzoxazole

A new thiol weak-fluorescence probe, 5-maleimidyl-2-(m-methylphenyl)benzoxazole (MMPB), gives a highly fluorescence product in the presence of Cys. In this paper, MMPB has been developed for the fluorimetric determination of cysteine (Cys). At lambda(ex)/lambda(em) = 305.6/425.6 nm, the linear range is from 0 to 3.3 x 10(-7) mol l(-1) and the detection limit (sigma = 3) of 6.2 x 10(-10) mol l(-1). The main advantage of this method lies in the relative high selectivity compared with the methods using other N-substituted maleimide type of thiol reagents, in which 0.15-fold (molar ratio) of GSH is allowed and most of other amino acids at 100-fold (molar ratio) level had no obvious effect on the results. The proposed method has been applied to the determination of Cys in real samples.     

Determination of sodium monofluoroacetate (1080) in biological samples as its 4-bromomethyl-7-methoxycoumarin derivative by RP-HPLC

A high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method with fluorescence detection is described for the determination of sodium monofluoroacetate (MFA-Na) in biological samples. 4-Bromomethyl-7-methoxycoumarin is used as a derivatization reagent and reacted with MFA-Na to form 7-methoxy-4-methylenecoumarin monofluoroacetate for HPLC analysis. Chromatographic separation is performed on a Hewlett Packard RP-18 column using methanol-water (60:40, v/v) as the mobile phase. A fluorescent detector is employed with the excitation and emission wavelengths as 319 nm and 390 nm, respectively. The novel method yields a good linear relationship when the concentration of MFA-Na is within 1 and 500 nmol/mL (r = 0.9996). The detection limit is 50 pmol/mL. The established method is applied to determine MFA-Na in biological samples. The recovery rates of MFA-Na are between 81% and 88%, and the relative standard deviations are less than 5%. The method shows good sensitivity and selectivity for the determination of MFA-Na in biological samples.     

Molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction and high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection for the determination of urinary trans,trans-muconic acid: a comparison with ionic exchange extraction

A new molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) has been synthesized for the selective extraction of trans,trans-muconic acid (ttMA) from urine samples, followed by high-performance liquid chromatography analysis with ultraviolet detection. The synthesis was based on non-covalent interactions, and 4-vinylpyridine was used as a functional monomer. The analytical calibration curve was prepared using a pool of five urine samples of non-smokers spiked with ttMA standards with concentrations that ranged from 0.3 to 10 mg L(-1) (r(2) = 0.999). The limit of quantification was 0.3 mg L(-1) (lower than the biological exposure limits suggested by the ACGIH). The within-day and between-day precision and accuracy presented relative standard deviations and relative errors of less than 15%. The analytical frequency was 4 h(-1) (considering extraction and separation/quantification steps), and the same MIP cartridge was efficiently used for approximately 100 cycles. All figures of merit were similar or better than those obtained by the procedure based on ionic exchange extraction. The proposed method could be an interesting alternative for the routine analysis of ttMA in urine for biological monitoring procedures of human exposure to benzene.     

Applications of silver nanoparticles capped with different functional groups as the matrix and affinity probes in surface-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight and atmospheric pressure matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization ion trap mass spectrometry for rapid analysis of sulfur drugs and biothiols in human urine

A strategy is presented for the analysis of sulfur drugs and biothiols using silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) capped with different functional groups as the matrix and affinity probes in surface-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (SALDI-TOF MS) and atmospheric pressure-matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization ion trap mass spectrometry (AP-MALDI-ITMS). Biothiols adsorbed on the surface of AgNPs through covalent bonding were subjected to ultraviolet (UV) radiation that enabled desorption and ionization due to the excellent photochemical property of NPs. The proposed method has been successfully applied for the determination of cysteine and homocysteine in human urine samples using an internal standard. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) for cysteine and homocysteine in urine sample are 7 and 22 nM, respectively, with a relative standard deviation (RSD) of <10%. The advantages of the present method compared with the methods reported in the literature for biothiol analysis are simplicity, rapidity and sensitivity without the need for time-consuming separation and tedious preconcentration processes. Additionally, we also found that the bare AgNPs can be directly used as the matrix in MALDI-TOF MS for the analysis of sulfur drugs without the addition of an extra proton source. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.