More sensitive automated detection of polyamines in physiological fluids and tissue extracts with omicron-phthalaldehyde.

Omicron-Phthalaldehyde reacts with primary amines to form an intensely blue-fluorescing product. Replacing ninhydrin with this compound in our automated high-pressure liquid-chromatographic technique for determination of polyamines, we achieved a 6- to 10-fold increase in sensitivity. Linearity and reproducibility are excellent, and the method is shown to be applicable to analysis of physiological fluids and of tissue extracts.