Determination of thiol compounds by solid-phase extraction using multi-walled carbon nanotubes as adsorbent coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography-fluorescence detection

We describe a method for solid-phase extraction of biogenic thiols using multi-walled carbon nanotubes as adsorbent, and their subsequent determination via HPLC and fluorescence detection. The fluorogenic reagent N-(4,4-difluoro-5,7-dimethyl-4-bora-3a,4a-diaza-s-indacene-3-yl)methyl) iodoacetamide was applied to derivatizate the thiols. The type of eluent and its volume, the sample pH, extraction time and sample volume were optimized. The calibration curves of the thiols are linear in the range from 0. 5 to 200 nM (for glutathione), 0. 02 to 5 nM (for cysteine), and 2 to 500 nM (for acetylcysteine), and the correlation coefficients range between 0. 9955 and 0. 9997. The respective limits of detection are 20 pM, 4 pM and 80 pM (at an SNR of 3), and the limits of quatification are 67 pM, 13 pM, and 267 pM (at an SNR of 10). Recoveries range from 85.0% to 113.1% for human urine and plasma samples spiked with the three thiols, and relative standard deviations are in the range from 2.1 to 7.4%. (author)