End-column amperometric detection of melatonin by high performance capillary electrophoresis

A rapid and sensitive method is described for the detection of melatonin in rat pineal gland and melatonin tablets. Capillary electrophoresis (CE) with electrochemical detection (EC) was used. This method had high sensitivity and good reproducibility. The detection limit of melatonin was as low as 1.3×10−9 mol/l (0.30 fg). There was a linear range of concentration from 3.9×10−7 to 3.25×10−5 mol/l with a correlation coefficient of 0.999. The linear equation was Y=8.27+0.0042X with a slope of 0.0042 pA/nM. The relative standard deviations of the peak current response and the migration time for 16 continuous injections of 6.5 μM melatonin were 4.5 and 0.48%, respectively. The proposed method was applied to detect melatonin in the rat pineal gland and the melatonin tablets. Good results were obtained compared with previous reports.