The amino acid sequence is the primary structure of a protein and it is unique to a particular peptide or protein. Determining amino acid composition in protein/peptide hydrolysates, foods, feeds, and pharmaceutical preparations is important. Amino acids are also key ingredients in the cell culture medium used to prepare recombinant proteins. It is often desirable to monitor on a regular basis the consumption of individual amino acids reaction in the bioreactor so the conditions in the bioreactor can be optimized.
Accurately separating, identifying, and quantitating amino acids is challenging. Waters provides a number of solutions that use pre-column derivatization so that amino acids can be easily analyzed. Kits are available in both manual and automated configurations.