Analysis of 13C carbohydrates in life science at natural and enriched level by liquid chromatography/isotope ratio mass spectrometry

摘要

We have successfully developed a method to analyze stable carbon isotope ratios (delta~(13)C) in carbohydrates by LC/IRMS in a variety of organisms and materials both at the natural ~(13)C abundance level and for ~(13)C labeled materials to study carbohydrate synthesis. This new LC/IRMS method has shown to be a powerful tool in metabolic studies in neonates for measuring kinetics of glucose. Only 20 (mu)L of plasma was needed, which is of extremely high relevance for studies in neonates or in small animals especially when dealing with low enrichments. The better precision for the LC/IRMS technique is mainly because it does not require correction for derivatization. Compared with the GC/MS technique, LC/IRMS requires lower amounts of label to obtain accurate data, which reduces the costs of the experiment. Further applications of the method include physiological studies on carbohydrate mechanism, biogeochemical studies to determine the sources and fate of carbohydrates in natural ecosystems and food adultery studies.