Abstract
The monohydroxy analogue of norepinephrine, octopamine (OA), appears as a trace amine in a variety of vertebrate tissues (Yui et al., 1980; Boulton and Juorio, 1981), and is a primary component of the insect nervous system (Evans, 1980). In insects, OA serves as a neurotransmitter, neuromodulator and neurohormone (Orchard, 1982) and has been proposed as the sympathomimetic effector of physiological responses to excitation (Hoyle, 1975; Downer, 1979). The demonstrated importance of OA in insects, together with its potential significance in vertebrates, indicates the need for a convenient, sensitive procedure for simultaneous determination of OA and other monoamines in small amounts of biological tissue. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with electrochemical detection (E1CD) has been used successfully to estimate catecholamines and 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) (Shoup, 1982), but the high potential required to electro-oxidize OA has generally excluded this compound from such analyses (Bailey et al., 1982). The problem of detection has recently been resolved by the use of two coulometric detectors in series (Martin et al. 1983). Eluant from the HPLC column is first exposed to a detector set at a relatively low potential which effects complete oxidation of catecholamines; the eluant then passes to a second detector which is set at the higher potential required for oxidation of phenolamines.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bailey, B.A., Martin, R.J. and Downer, R.G.H. (1982) Simultaneous determination of dopamine, norepinephrine, tyramine and octopamine by reverse phase liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection. J. Liquid Chromatog. 5, 2435–2452.
Boulton, A.A. and Juorio, A.V. (1981) Brain trace amines, in Handbook of Neurochemistry, Vol. 1 (Lajtha A., ed). Plenum Press, New York.
Dougan, D.F.H. and Wade, D.N. (1981) Aminergic neurons, phenolamine pathways and octopamine. TIPS, 1981, 113–116.
Downer, R.G.H. (1979) Induction of hypertrehalosemia by excitation in Periplaneta americana. J. Insect Physiol. 25, 59–63.
Evans, P.D. (1980) Biogenic amines in the insect nervous system. Adv. Insect Physiol. 15, 317–473.
Hoyle, G. (1975) Evidence that insect dorsal unpaired median (DUM) neurons are octopaminergic. J. exp. Zool. 193, 425–431.
Martin, R.J., Bailey, B. A. and Downer, R.G.H. (1983) Rapid estimation of catecholamines, octopamine and 5-hydroxytryptamine from biological tissues using high performance liquid chromatography with coulo- metric detection. J. Chromatogr.(in press).
Molinoff, P.B., Landsberg, L. and Axelrod, J. (1969) An enzymatic assay for octopamine and other 3-hydroxy- lated phenylethylamines. Pharmac. exp. Therap. 170, 253–261.
Orchard, I. (1982) Octopamine in insects: neurotransmitter, neurohormone and neuromodulator. Can. J. Zool. 60, 659–669.
Shoup, R.E. (1982) Recent reports on liquid chromatography /electrochemistry, BAS Press, West Lafayette.
Yui, Y., Itokawa, Y. and Kawai, C. (1980) A rapid and highly sensitive method for determination of picogram levels of norepinephrine and epinephrine in tissues by high performance liquid chromatography. Analyt. Biochem. 108, 11–15.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1984 The Humana Press Inc.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Martin, R.J., Bailey, B.A., Downer, R.G.H. (1984). Analysis of Octopamine, Dopamine, 5-Hydroxytryptamine and Tryptophan in the Brain and Nerve Cord of the American Cockroach. In: Boulton, A.A., Baker, G.B., Dewhurst, W.G., Sandler, M. (eds) Neurobiology of the Trace Amines. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-5312-9_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-5312-9_8
Publisher Name: Humana Press
Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-9781-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-5312-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive