Determination of histamine and histidine by capillary zone electrophoresis with pre-column naphthalene-2,3-dicarboxaldehyde derivatization and fluorescence detection

A rapid and sensitive method was developed for the simultaneous determination of histamine and histidine by capillary zone electrophoresis with lamp-induced fluorescence detection. A fluoregenic derivatization reagent, naphthalene-2,3-dicarboxaldehyde (NDA) was successfully applied to label the histamine and histidine respectively. The derivatization conditions and separation parameters including pH and concentration of electrolyte and sample injection were optimized in detail. The optimal derivatization reaction was performed with 1.0 mM NDA, 20 mM NaCN, and 20 mM borate buffer, pH 9.1 for 15 min. The separation of NDA-tagged histamine and histidine could be achieved in less than 200 s with 40 mM phosphate buffer (pH 5.8) as the running buffer. The detection limits for histamine and histidine were 5.5×10−9 and 3.8×10−9 M, respectively (S/N=3). The relative standard derivations for migration time and peak height of derivatives were less than 1.5 and 5.0%, respectively. The method was successfully applied to the analysis of histamine and histidine in the P815 mastocytoma cells and the beer samples.