Fluoroacetylation/fluoroethylesterification as a derivatization approach for gas chromatography-mass spectrometry in metabolomics: preliminary study of lymphohyperplastic diseases.

Metabolic fingerprinting in combination with gas chromatography and multivariate analysis is being extensively employed for the improved understanding of biological changes induced by endogenous or exogenous factors. Chemical derivatization increases the sensitivity and specificity of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) for polar or thermally labile biological compounds, which bear derivatizable groups. Thus, there is a constant demand for simple methods of derivatization and separation that satisfy the need for metabolite analysis, identifying as many chemical classes of compounds as possible.