Quantitation of biologically important primary amines as their isothiocyanate derivatives by gas chromatography using nitrogen detector and validation by selected ion monitoring.

A gas chromatographic method for the quantitation of biologically important primary amines using nitrogen detector is described. The primary amines are converted to their isothiocyanate derivatives by reaction with carbon disulfide. Appropriate non-biological primary amines are used as internal standards. The usefulness of the method is illustrated by analysis of biological samples, such as plasma, urine, cerebrospinal fluid and tissue samples and the results were validated using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry with selected ion monitoring.