Determination of Fatty Acids in Saliva of Smokers and Nonsmokers by HPLC with Fluorescence Detection Using a Hydrazine-Based Difluoro-boraindacene Reagent

1,3,5,7-Tetramethyl-8-daminozide-difluoroboradiaza-s-indacence (TMBODIPY-H), a pre-column fluorescent derivatization reagent, was applied to the analysis of fatty acid by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection. Using this reagent, 12 fatty acids from propionic acid (C3) to stearic acid (C18) can be derivatized at room temperature in the presence of 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)carbodiimide within 2 h. The baseline separation of these derivatives can be achieved within 46 min by gradient elution. The detection limits of these fatty acids are in the range of 0.1–1 nM and the linear ranges of most of them are 0.5–100 nM. This was the first application of hydrazine-based difluoro-boraindacene reagent for the analysis of fatty acids, and the proposed method has been successfully used for the determination of saliva samples of smokers and nonsmokers with recoveries of 88–110 %.