Analysis of Aldoses by Gas Chromatography as Their 2-Aminoethanethiol Derivatives

Abstract

A new and simple gas chromatographic method for the analysis of aldoses was devised. This method involves the reaction of aldoses with 2-aminoethanethiol in pyridine followed by trimethylsilylation and injection into a gas chromatograph. The peak of aldoses showed fairly good separation from the corresponding alditols. Therefore, this method was applied to the determination of the degree of polymerization of oligosaccharides, which produce alditol and aldose after reduction and hydrolysis. Since a sulfur atom is introduced into the reaction product, aldoses can be analysed by the flame photometric detector with high sensitivity, suggesting the possibility of selective analysis of aldoses in complex biological materials.