Enantioseparation of chiral amino acids as the N(O,S)-ethoxycarbonylated diastereomeric esters by achiral dual-capillary column gas chromatography.
The enantioseparation of 30 racemic amino acids in a single analysis is described for the determination of their absolute configurations. Two-phase extractive ethoxycarbonyl (EOC) reaction with ethyl chloroformate present in the dichloromethane phase was performed to recover amino acids from alkaline aqueous solutions. The resulting N(O,S)-EOC amino acids extracted into an organic solvent after acidification were reacted with a chiral alcohol such as (S)-(+)-3-methylbutan-2-ol, (S)-(+)-butan-2-ol and (S)-(+)-octan-2-ol for gas chromatographic analysis on achiral dual-capillary DB-5 and DB-17 columns of different polarities. Among the chiral reagents examined, (S)-(+)-3-methylbutan-2-ol provided the best diastereomeric structures in resolving all the racemic amino acids into their enantiomeric pairs with high resolution factors (1.2-8.0). Moreover, the temperature-programmed retention index (I) values measured on the two columns were characteristic of each enantiomer. Hence simple I matching with the reference values was useful in cross-checking for chemical identification and also chiral discrimination. When the present method was applied to a fermented dairy product (Yakult), D-alanine, D-aspartic acid, D-glutamic acid and D-proline were positively detected along with their respective L-forms in addition to glycine.
Lee
J
J
Department of Biotechnology and Bioproducts Research Center, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.
Kim
K R
KR
Won
S
S
Kim
J H
JH
Goto
J
J
D000596:Amino Acids / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry; D002849:Chromatography, Gas; D004952:Esters; D007536:Isomerism
D000596:Amino Acids; D004952:Esters