Applying an Organic Acid Analysis System to Intestinal Flora Research

Introduction

In recent years, it is becoming clear that intestinal flora in the gut contribute to the maintenance and preservation of the health of their hosts. Therefore, when examining the effects of intestinal flora on the host, the metabolites produced by intestinal flora can be considered to be related to these benefits. While LC-MS may be used for analysis due to the large number of substances present in these metabolites, formic acid and acetic acid cannot be detected since LC-MS employs these organic acids in the mobile phase. In contrast, the post-column pH buffered electric conductivity detection method, which combines the ion exclusion mode and post-column reaction detection method performed using HPLC, employs neither formic acid nor acetic acid in the mobile phase, and this enables both highly sensitive and selective detection of organic acids including formic acid and acetic acid. This article introduces an example of extracting metabolites produced by intestinal flora from mouse feces and measuring the short-chain fatty acids contained in the metabolites using an organic acid analysis system.

April 27, 2017 GMT