Determination of histamine, methylhistamines and histamine-o-phthaldialdehyde complexes by two high-performance liquid chromatographic procedures. Application to biological samples.

Two high-performance liquid chromatographic procedures were proposed to measure histamine. The first, with UV detection and a strong acid cation exchanger (Partisil 10, SCX Whatman), made it possible to isolate histamine and some methylated derivatives. The second, with a C18 sorbent (mu Bondapak, Waters, 10 microns particle size) eluted with ion-pairing phases, made it possible to isolate the histamine-o-phthaldialdehyde complexes. This last procedure allied with a chromatographic purification step gave lower or identical amounts of histamine than those described in human urine (16 +/- 7 micrograms per 24 h), canine whole blood (1.5 +/- 1 ng/ml) and human gastric juice (2.3 +/- 1.4 ng/ml). The two procedures gave the concentration of a histamine-like compound isolated from the antral mucosa.