A novel capillary electrophoresis (CE)-based immobilized enzyme reactor (IMER) using graphene oxide (GO) as a support was developed by using a simple and reliable immobilization procedure based on layer by layer electrostatic assembly. Using trypsin as a model enzyme, the performance of the fabricated CE-based IMERs was evaluated. Various conditions, including trypsin concentration, trypsin coating time, number of trypsin layers and buffer pH, were investigated and optimized. The Michaelis constant Km (0.24 ± 0.02 mM) and the maximum velocity Vmax (0.32 ± 0.04 mM s(-1)) were determined using the CE-based IMERs, and the values are consistent with those obtained using free trypsin, indicating that enzyme immobilized via the proposed approach does not cause a significant structural change of the enzyme or any reduction of enzyme activity. The presented CE-based IMERs exhibit excellent reproducibility with RSD less than 2.8% over 20 runs, and still remain 79.5% of the initial activity after five days with more than 100 runs. Using the proposed CE-based IMERs, the digestion of angiotensin was completed within 3 min, while quite a number of trypstic peptides were observed for BSA on-line digestion with an incubation time of 30 min. As identified by MS analysis, the online digestion products of BSA using the present CE-based IMER are comparable with those obtained using free trypsin digestion for 12 h incubation. It is indicated that the present immobilization strategy using GO as a support is reliable and practicable for accurate on-line analysis and characterization of peptides and proteins.
Simultaneous detection of various o-phthalaldehyde (OPA)-labeled amino acids (AAs) in food samples was reported based on CE separation. Ionic liquid was used for the first time for CE analysis of AAs with in-capillary derivatization. Several other additives, including SDS, α/β-CD, and ACN, as well as key parameters for CE separation (buffer pH value, separation voltage), were also investigated. Our results show that the multiple additive strategy exhibits good stable and repeatable character for CE analysis of OPA-labeled AAs, for either in-capillary derivatization or CE separation, and allows simultaneous quantification of different OPA-labeled AAs in a large concentration range of 50 μM to 3.0 mM with LOD down to 10 μM. Seventeen OPA-labeled AAs, except for two pairs of AAs (His/Gln and Phe/Leu), which were separated with resolutions of 1.1 and 1.2, respectively, were baseline separated and identified within 23 min using the present multiple additive strategy. The method was successfully applied for simultaneous analysis of AAs in seven beer samples and as many as eleven trace-amount AAs were detected and quantified, indicating the valuable potential application of the present method for food analysis.
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