Determination of monoamine neurotransmitters and metabolites by high-performance liquid chromatography based on Ag(III) complex chemiluminescence detection.

A novel, simple and efficient chemiluminescence system has been developed for the determination of monoamine neurotransmitters and metabolites. By using the Ag (III)-luminol chemiluminescence system as a detector, a high performance liquid chromatography chemiluminescence method (HPLC-CL) was established and used to detect seven monoamine neurotransmitters. Under the optimized conditions, the detection limits (3S/N) of epinephrine (E), levodopa (l-DOPA), dopamine (DA), serotonin (5-HT), 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol (MHPG), 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) and 5-hydroxypentylacetic acid (5-HIAA) were 20.0 μg dm,15.0 μg dm, 15.0 μg dm, 8.0 μg dm, 2.0 μg dm, 2.0 μg dm and 3.0 μg dm, respectively. Moreover, they were well within the linear range of 50-1000 μg dm, 50-1000 μg dm, 50-1000 μg dm, 25-1000 μg dm, 5-25 μg dm, 5-25 μg dm and 10-30 μg dm, respectively. The average recovery varied between 84.82% and 110.4%. The method has the attributes of simplicity, high sensitivity, and high efficiency. The sensitization and inhibition mechanisms for luminol-[Ag(HIO)]- analytes CL system were proposed by CL spectra and free-radical capture experiment.