Chiral separations for d-amino acid analysis in biological samples.

It is widely accepted that some of the free d-amino acids play important biological role. d-Aspartate and d-serine formed in the central nervous system of higher vertebrates have neurotransmitter/neuromodulator function. Together with d-alanine they are distributed in various tissues and biological fluids. Studying their physiological and pathological significance requires their sensitive and accurate determination in biological samples. The various separation and detection methods used for their analysis are overviewed in the present paper. Our focus is mainly the quantitative performance and the analysis of real biospecimens.