Abstract
Alkyl chloroformates are known for their ability to produce mixed anhydrides, and they have found use as versatile derivatization reagents for gas chromatographic (GC) separation of amino- and organic acids. Triple-quadrupole mass spectrometers are excellent detectors for high sensitive and selective analysis. Here, we describe a methyl chloroformate (MCF) GC-MS/MS method for the quantitative analysis of metabolites containing amino- and/or carboxylic groups. The method covers over 60 metabolites with quantitation limits down to the low picomole range injected on column, and any metabolite with amino- and/or carboxylic acid functional groups that yield a stable and volatile MCF derivative can be included in the method. Absolute quantitation can be achieved by including a stable isotope-coded derivatization agent (d3-MCF) and deuterated alcohol solvent (e.g., d4-methanol). As the carboxylic and amino groups are differently labeled, the former from the solvent methanol while the latter from MCF, this approach can also be used to identify a number of amino and carboxylic groups in unknown analytes in an extract.
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Kvitvang, H.F.N., Kristiansen, K.A., Lien, S.K., Bruheim, P. (2014). Quantitative Analysis of Amino and Organic Acids by Methyl Chloroformate Derivatization and GC-MS/MS Analysis. In: Raftery, D. (eds) Mass Spectrometry in Metabolomics. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1198. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1258-2_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1258-2_10
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Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
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Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-1258-2
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