High Performance Liquid Chromatography of Tryptophan and Serotonin Metabolites

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Abstract
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter in cerebral centers and its perturbations can produce humoral and behavioral disorders. Exploration of tryptophan and serotonin metabolism was extremely important for early detection and supervision of treatment in carcinoid tumors. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) enabled the separation and titration of different metabolites (5-hydroxyindolylacetic acid, serotonin, tryptophan, 5-hydroxytryptophan and N-acetyl tryptophan (NAT) as internal standard) in several types of biological tissues: blood, urine, brain and CSF. This method was original because it connected HPLC with fluorescence in continuous flow, which allowed it to change the conditions of pH and buffer. This technique was highly sensitive (below 100 pg) and very quick (10 min).