Study on sensitivity development of 2,3-dihydroxybenzoic acid by capillary zone electrophoresis-amperometric detection with p-methyl benzoate as stacking agent

For its high reactivity and very short half-life, the hydroxyl radical (OH ·) in vivo is very difficult to be detected. Usually, it is indirectly quantified by determining 2,3-dihydroxybenzoic acid (2,3-DHBA) and 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid (2,5-DHBA), which are the reaction products of salicylic acid (SA) and OH ·. Because 2,5-DHBA could be directly formed by the P₄₅₀ enzyme, only 2,3-DHBA is regarded as the real biomarker of OH · in biological studies. But the very low concentration of OH · in human bodies makes its determination very difficult and complicated. In this paper, a simple online stacking capillary zone electrophoresis coupled with amperometric detection (CZE-AD) method was explored to improve the detection sensitivity of 2,3-DHBA to reach the requirements in biological analysis. A mixture solution of 12.5 mmol/L Na₂B₄O₇-25 mmol/L NaH₂PO₄ (pH 7.9) was used as the running buffer and p-methyl benzoate was selected as a suitable stacker. The effects of the concentration, pH value, and injection time of p-methyl benzoate on stacking efficiency were carefully studied. Under the optimum stacking CZE-AD conditions, the detection sensitivity of 2,3-DHBA was improved about 20-fold and its detection limit reached the 10^-9 mol/L level. The experimental results showed that this was a potential method to determine OH · in vivo.