Determination of Taurine in Biological Samples by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Using 4-Flu

Objective A highly sensitive and rapid high-performance liquid chromatography method with pre-column derivatization with 4-fluoro-7-nitrobenzofurazan was developed for determination of taurine in biological samples,including plasma,brain,and liver.Methods The optimum derivatization reaction temperature was 70℃,and at this temperature the reaction was complete within 3 min.The derivatized taurine was separated using phosphate buffer (0.02 mol/L,pH 6.0):acetonitrile (84:16,v/v) as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min,and a column temperature of 25℃.The taurine derivatives were separated within 20 min (tR:14.5 min) and fluorometrically detected at 530 nm with excitation at 470 nm.Results The intra- and the inter-day coefficients of variation for the method were 5.3％ and 7.7％,respectively.The calibration curve was linear from 0.1 μmol/L to 30.0 μmol/L with a correlation coefficient of 0.9995.Conclusion This method can be used to determine the taurine contents in plasma,brain,and liver from normal rats and human plasma.