Determination of thiocyl in biological samples by liquid chromatography with ThioGlo™3 derivatization

Thiocyl (sodium thiosalicylate) belongs to a salicylate group of drugs, thus it has analgesic, antipyretic and anti-inflammatory effects. It possesses metal chelating function because it also belongs to a thiol-containing group of compounds which are well-known chelators. The studies of our research group showed that thiocyl is a promising chelator of lead poisoning due to its antioxidant and metal-chelating abilities. To the best of our knowledge, no methods were currently available for measuring thiocyl in biological samples. Therefore, we developed a reversed-phase HPLC method using fluorescence detection (λex = 365 nm, λem = 445 nm) with a one-step derivatizing reaction between thiocyl and a derivatizing agent-ThioGlo™3 (9-acetoxy-2-(4-(2, 5-dihydro-2,5-dioxo-1H-pyrrol-1-yl)pyenyl)-3-oxo-3H-naphtho[2,1-b]pyran). Most biological thiols (such as N-acetylcysteine (NAC), cysteine (CYS), glutathione (GSH) and homocysteine (HCYS)) do not interfere with the detection of thiocyl by using this technique. The linear range of its calibration curve was determined to be 25–2500 nM, and the detection limit of thiocyl was found to be 3 nM with 20 μL injection volume. The coefficients of variation (CV) for within-run precision and between-run precision ranged from 0.93 to 7.21%. This assay proved to be a rapid, sensitive and simple method for determining thiocyl in biological samples.