Measurement of glutamate, aspartate and glycine and its potential precursors in human brain using high-performance liquid chromatography by pre-column derivatization with dimethylaminoazobenzene [correction of diethylaminoazobenzene] sulphonyl chloride.

This paper describes a high-performance liquid chromatographic technique, with dimethylaminoazobenzene sulphonyl chloride derivatization, for the measurement of glutamate, aspartate and glycine and its potential precursors in human brain tissue. The derivatization procedure is simple, sensitive and highly reproducible. The derivatized amino acids are stable and can be analysed by reversed-phase chromatography with visible detection at an absorption wavelength of 436 nm. A preliminary application to the determination of the concentrations of several amino acids in several regions of the human brain is described.