title: Assay of gamma-glutamylcysteine synthetase activity in Plasmodium berghei by liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection.
abstract: This work describes a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method to determine gamma-glutamylcysteine (gamma-GC), the intermediate product of glutathione biosynthesis. Separation relies on isocratic reversed-phase chromatography using a Symmetry C18 HPLC column, particle size 5 microm, 4.6 x 250 mm i.d. The mobile phase is methanol-dibasic sodium phosphate (pH 6.6; 2.8 mM) (10:90, v/v) at the flow-rate of 0.5 ml/min and detection is operated electrochemically (+200 and +550 mV) with a pre-column derivatisation reaction using ortho-phthalaldehyde (OPA) as reagent. Under these conditions the calibration range of gamma-GC was 0.3-10 microg/ml; the limit of quantification was 0.3 microg/ml; accuracy, expressed as %Bias, was <10 and precision (%CV) was <6. The proposed HPLC assay was used to quantitate the gamma-glutamylcysteine produced by the gamma-glutamylcysteine synthetase of the rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei in an in vitro enzymatic assay.
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio di Biologia, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, V.le Regina Elena 299, 00161, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Birago
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Marchei
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pennino
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Valvo
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002138:Calibration; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D004563:Electrochemistry; D005721:Glutamate-Cysteine Ligase / Q000378:metabolism*; D010962:Plasmodium berghei / Q000201:enzymology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
chemical_list: D005721:Glutamate-Cysteine Ligase