Development of a new open-tubular capillary electrochromatography method for in vitro monitoring of toxic aromatic amines distribution in rat blood

Exposure to aromatic amines from different industrial and agricultural activities entails a substantial risk of deleterious somatic effects, genetic damage and cancer development. Thus, a new and simple method for separation and analysis of aromatic amines has been developed by open-tubular capillary electrochromatography with a novel amphipathic block copolymer (poly(tert-butyl acrylate)(127)-block-poly(glycidyl methacrylate)(86)) coating based on its self-assembled property. Key factors affecting the separation efficiency of the test analytes, such as pH, buffer concentration and selective solvent, were studied in detail. Meanwhile, method validation was well evaluated by linearity (≥0.998), detection limit and recovery. Application of this developed protocol on in vitro monitoring of the target aromatic amines distribution in rat blood demonstrated its potential usage for separation and determination of aromatic amines in biological samples. Additionally, for assimilating more polymeric materials into analysis of aromatic amines, the effect of morphology changes of the amphipathic block copolymer coating on open-tubular capillary electrochromatography separation was also studied, and the result revealed that the block copolymer coating could play the same role as surfactant.