Fast and Efficient Separation and Determination of UV-absorbing Amino Acids, Nucleobases, and Creatinine Using a Carboxy-functionalized Cation-exchange Column.

This paper presents a new HPLC technique for the determination of biogenic cations such as amino acids and nucleobases, using a weak-acid cation-exchange column. Fourteen analytes, five amino acids and seven bases in addition to creatinine and creatine, were separated in 12 min by means of a two-liquid gradient elution with UV detection. The newly released column packed with a carboxy-functionalized polymethacrylate resin could give excellent selectivity to the organic cations of interest, although such a column is in general suitable for the separation of inorganic common cations. The chromatographic intra-day repeatability was very good with RSDs less than 0.4%, and the quantitation precision based on peak area intensities was also good with RSDs less than 5% for all analytes. The linear calibration lines for quantitation ranged between 5 and 500 μM on 20-μL injections with R(2) more than 0.9990. Since the method could provide concentration data of urinary creatinine and some metabolites simultaneously, for example, the urinary phenylalanine/creatinine ratios for phenylketonuria of inborn errors of metabolism were simply determined through one chromatographic run. The ratios for patients were significantly higher than those for controls. We found that the new weak-acid cation-exchange column was suitable for the separation of organic cations as well as inorganic cations.