Retention behaviors of pre-column derivatized mono-, di- and oligosaccharides in various modes of high performance liquid chromatography

Three LC-based methods, including reversed-phase chromatography (RPC), ion-pair RPC and weak anion-exchange chromatography (WAX), were examined in the separations of precolumn derivatized mono- and oligosaccharides with the following three tagging agents: 1-naphthylamine (1-NA), 2-aminoanthracene (2-AA), and 3-amino-2,7-naphthalenedisulfonic acid (ANDSA). Due to differences in their charges and polarity, the three tagging agents imparted the sugar derivatives varying elution patterns in the three, just mentioned, chromatographic modes. While RPC yielded high resolution separations for 1-NA- and 2-AA-sugar derivatives, ion-pair RPC in the presence of the ion-pairing agent dodecyl trimethylammonium bromide (DTAB) in the mobile phase exhibited far more resolution and selectivity than WAX in the separation of ANDSA-sugar derivatives. This finding portrays the fact that an octadecyl column operating in ion-pair RPC mode can eliminate in most cases the need for an ion-exchange column for bioanalytical separations of ionic or ionizable species. Lastly, the characteristics of each chromatographic mode in the analysis of derivatized sugars are described using various mobile phase compositions.