Chromatography of biogenic amines. I. Generally applicable separation and detection methods.

This first part of the review on "Chromatography of Biogenic Amines" is devoted to the description of generally applicable separation and detection methods. Gas chromatographic and gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric methods, and applications of chromatographic methods to specific amines or groups of related amines and their metabolites, will be covered in Part II. Trends in the development of separation methods (paper and thin-layer chromatography, paper and thin-layer electrophoresis and ion-exchange methods) are described, using mostly aliphatic amines as examples as they do not exhibit features that permit their specific determination. Reagents suggested for the formation of coloured and fluorescent derivatives of amines are reviewed and their applications are described. Within the limitation of the reviewed and their applications are described. Within the limitation of the mostly inadequate information that is available, the relative usefulness of the different derivative-forming reactions are compared.