Ion chromatographic analysis of carbohydrates and amino acids

Biomolekule su iznimno važan dio svakoga organizma jer kontroliraju gotovo sve njegove aspekte, od strukture do životnih procesa i energije. Stoga posljednjih godina velik broj analitičara usmjerava pažnju upravo na unaprjeđenje postojećih i razvoj novih metoda i instrumentacije koja će omogućiti analizu biomolekula i dodatno razumijevanje njihovih uloga. Jedna od zastupljenijih metoda za analizu i odvajanje različitih nabijenih ili ionizirajućih molekula poput aminokiselina, proteina ili ugljikohidrata je ionska kromatografija. Ova metoda odlikuje se brojnim pogodnostima kao što su primjenjivost za simultanu analizu velikog broja molekula, lako povezivanje s drugim tehnikama (primjerice tehnikama detekcije), a u funkciji pročišćavanja omogućava dobivanje izrazito čistih proizvoda u relativno kratkom vremenu izvođenja. Velik napredak u analizi aminokiselina i ugljikohidrata bilo je uvođenje pulsne amperometrijske detekcije. Pregledom literature pronađene su brojne aplikacije za učinkovito i simultano razdvajanje i određivanje aminokiselina i ugljikohidrata anionskim izmjenjivačkim kolonama uz integriranu pulsnu amperometrijsku detekciju. Ovaj rad nudi pregled aktualnih metoda analize aminokiselina i ugljikohidrata s detaljnijim osvrtom na pronađene kromatografske aplikacije.Biomolecules are an extremely important part of every single organism since they control almost all of its aspects, from structure to metabolic processes and transformation of energy. Because of that, recent researches are driven towards the improvement of existing methods or development of the new ones, followed by development of instrumentation which will make analysis and understanding of biomolecules and the roles they have in organisms easier. Ion chromatography is one of the most intensively used methods in the analysis of biomolecules such as amino acids, proteins or carbohydrates. This method has a vast variety of advantages which includes simultaneous analysis of a huge number of molecules, simple linkage with other techniques (detection techniques, for example), and, in the purification mode, final products are extremely pure and obtained in short run time. Great progress has been made in the analysis of amino acids and carbohydrates when pulsed amperometric detection was introduced. By reviewing the literature, many applications have been found for the effective and simultaneous separation and determination of amino acids and carbohydrates on anion exchange columns with integrated pulsed amperometric detection. This manuscript is a review that summarises current methods for the analysis of amino acids and carbohydrates with emphasis on chromatographic techniques