Analysis of Short-Chain Fatty Acids in Biological Samples Using GC-MS

Introduction

Short-chain fatty acids, such as acetic acid, are compounds that have been commonplace in our lives from long ago. While they are recently gaining attention as useful components within intestinal flora, they are also known as compounds that prove difficult to quantitatively analyze. Generally, quantitation at low concentrations is not possible by LC-MS since formic acid and acetic acid are used in the mobile phase. With GC-MS, which requires derivatization of hydroxyl groups, there is the problem where most short-chain fatty acids volatize when drying moisture in samples, a process necessary in most derivatization processes. In this research, we avoided this problem by using the condensing agent 4-(4,6-Dimethoxy-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl)- 4-methylmorpholinium Chloride (DMT-MM), which induces condensation reactions between carboxylic acid and amines even in water or methanol, to derivatize short-chain fatty acids with an amine and then performed GC-MS analysis. We also evaluated the quantitative performance of the analysis system when analysis is performed using derivatization.

March 1, 2023 GMT