Application of Capillary Electrophoresis to the Simultaneous Determination of Betaines in Plants

Abstract

Water stresses, such as drought, high salinity, high and low temperature and other water deficits, are the most serious problems for plant growth, especially for crop production.

Simultaneous determination of β-alanine betaine and trimethylamine in bacterial culture and plant samples by capillary electrophoresis

“…Thus, the derivatization protocol of the current study could strikingly be used for simultaneous determination of both β-alanine betaine and TMA in plant, food, and microbial samples. In many previous reports, various betaines were esterified with 4-bromophenacyl bromide in the presence of a potassium bicarbonate/potassium dihydrogen phosphate/acetonitrile (1:1:4 v/v) (Zhang et al 1997;Nishimura et al 2001;Zhang et al 2002). Under these conditions, peak of trimethylamine salt derived from the breakdown of β-alanine betaine was observed in the capillary electropherogram as confirmed by using authentic trimethylamine (Nishimura et al 2001;Zhang et al 2002).…”

“…The limit of detection of both compounds was found to be 0.01 mM (100 μM). Similarly, the detection limit of glycine betaine estimated by low pH capillary electrophoresis method was reported to be 0.01 mM (Nishimura et al 2001;Zhang et al 2002). Moreover, slightly lower detection limit (0.005 mM) for DMSPester by low pH capillary electrophoresis has also been reported (Zhang et al 2005).…”

“…To overcome this limitation, the samples were derivatized with 4-bromphencyl bromide before analysis with capillary electrophoresis. Esterification was carried out following the methods of Nishimura et al (2001) with some modifications. Briefly, 0.1 ml of the sample extract and/or authentic standards of β-alanine betaine and TMA were placed in a microtube and mixed with 0.05 ml of buffer solution (100 mM KH 2 PO 4 /distilled water/acetonitrile = 1:1:4).…”

“…In many previous reports, various betaines were esterified with 4-bromophenacyl bromide in the presence of a potassium bicarbonate/potassium dihydrogen phosphate/acetonitrile (1:1:4 v/v) (Zhang et al 1997;Nishimura et al 2001;Zhang et al 2002). Under these conditions, peak of trimethylamine salt derived from the breakdown of β-alanine betaine was observed in the capillary electropherogram as confirmed by using authentic trimethylamine (Nishimura et al 2001;Zhang et al 2002). During derivatization with 4-bromophenacyl bromide, the compound dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), which structurally resembles β-alanine betaine, was also degraded to dimethylsulfide (DMS) and acrylate under an alkaline condition (Gorham et al 1982;Zhang et al 2005).…”

“…Recently, capillary electrophoresis has been applied in many different fields because of its extremely high resolution, its speed, and its applicability to a wide range of molecules whether they are charged or uncharged, or of low or high molecular weight (Shintani and Polonsky 1997). In the present work, capillary electrophoresis method under low pH (Nishimura et al 2001;Zhang et al 2002) was effectively improved for simultaneous determination of β-alanine betaine and TMA in both plant leaves and microbial culture samples.…”