A new, rapid, sensitive, robust, and reliable method has been developed for the qualitative analysis of phosphoserine, phosphoethanolamine, phosphoglycerol, and phosphate using gas chromatography with mass spectrometry and two-step trimethylsilylation. The method employs hexamethyldisilazane for silylation of the phosphate and hydroxyl groups in the first phase and bis(trimethylsilyl)trifluoroacetamide for silylation of the less-reactive amino groups in the second phase. This order is of key importance for the method because of the different reactivities of the two reagents and the mechanism of derivatization of the active groups of the analytes. Trimethylsilylated derivatives of the analytes were identified on the basis of their retention times and mass spectra. The probable structures of the major fragments were identified in the spectra of the trimethylsilylated derivatives and characteristic m/z fragments were selected for each analyte. Fragments with m/z 73 and 299 occurred in the spectra of all the analytes. The characteristic retention data were employed to calculate the retention indices of the individual silylated phosphorylated substances in the hydrocarbon range C12-C19 for the DB-5ms column. The method was employed to measure the polar fraction of the hydrolysate of the cytoplasmic membrane of Bacillus subtilis. The detection limits vary between 5 μg/mL (trimethylsilylated phosphate) and 72 μg/mL (trimethylsilylated phosphoethanolamine).
A simple method for the simultaneous derivatization of carbohydrates, polyols, amines and amino acids using hexamethyldisilazane and N,O-bis(trimethylsilyl)trifluoroacetamide was developed. This method allows the direct derivatization of urine samples without sample pretreatment before derivatization. The method was successfully used for analysis of the selected metabolites in urine samples of healthy individuals and neonates suffering from galactosemia. The limits of detection by positive chemical ionization gas chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry analysis were in the range of 1.0 mgL for mannitol to 4.7 mg/L for glucose.
A new, fast, selective, and reliable capillary electrophoresis method has been developed for analysis of selected phosphoesters (phosphoserine, phosphoethanolamine, phosphoglycerol) and phosphate. The method is based on separation of specific phosphate containing headgroups (phosphoesters) which are cleaved from the glycerol skeleton of a phospholipid by a regioselective enzyme (phospholipase C). Analysis of intact phospholipids with the same polar headgroup but different fatty acids shows that fatty acid composition has a high impact on separation of phospholipids, so analysis of separated polar headgroups, which avoids this influence, represents a much more suitable approach for phospholipid class research. Optimization of method parameters results in running buffers of relatively narrow pH interval (pH about 10) where all phosphoesters are separated. Further method validation has shown that direct UV detection has a sufficient detection limit for all analytes to perform suitable analyses of cell membrane lipids. The optimized method was tested on the lysate of cell membrane of Bacillus subtilis, where all analytes were determined.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.