Separation of Amines as their 6-Methyl-2-phenyl-4-quinolinecarboxylic Acid N-Hydroxysuccinimide Ester Derivatives by High Performance Liquid Chromatography

6-Methyl-2-phenyl-4-quinolinecarboxylic acid N-hydroxysuccinimide ester (MPQC-OSu) has been developed for precolumn derivatization of aliphatic amines in HPLC. The great difference between the fluorescence quantum yield of MPQC-OSu derivative and that of MPQC-OSu hydrolysate, 6-methyl-2-phenyl-4-quinolinecarboxylic acid (MPQC) makes this reagent suitable for amine-labeling, followed by chromatographic separation. In pH8.5 borate buffer, MPQC-OSu reacted with amines at 60°C for 12 min to form highly fluorescent carboxamides and excess reagent hydrolysed to MPQC. The chromatographic behavior of amine derivatives with MPQC-OSu has been investigated using HPLC on C₁₈ and C₈ columns, respectively, with fluorescence detection at 340–402nm. A baseline separation of isopropanolamine, methylamine, ethylamine, n-propylamine, n-butylamine, n-amylamine and n-hexylamine was obtained in 25min using isocratic elution on a C₁₈ column using methanol-water (70:30, v/v) as eluent. Detection limits were in the range 0.13–1 nM.Acknowledgements This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Foundation of Education Ministry of China and Chengguang Project of Wuhan, China.