Quantitative analysis of branched amino acids in a single fruit fly

15 Oct 2011

Japanese scientists have used a highly sensitive and accurate analytical method to determine the quantity of free branched amino acids (BCAAs) in a single fruit fly.

Fruit flies are a valuable organism in biological research, and particularly in the areas of genetics and developmental biology. However, as these creatures are small, analysing the metabolites in its body is difficult, and generally a large sample pool is required. However, this means that small individual distinctions are lost and the fly’s aminogram is equalised.

By using liquid chromatography-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LC-ICP-MS) with pre-column derivatisation with a metal tag reagent, Daigo Iwahata and colleagues managed to accurately analyse the quantity of free BCAAs in a single fruit fly.

This article is free to access until 14th November 2011! Click to below to read more…

Quantitative analysis of branched amino acids in a single fruit fly by LC-ICP-MS after pre-column derivatization with a metal tag reagent, Daigo Iwahata, Manabu Tsuda, Toshiro Aigaki and Hiroshi Miyano, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1JA10212E