Chiral separation of amino acids by capillary electrophoresis with 3-[(3-cholamidopropyl)-dimethylammonio]-1-propane sulfonate as chiral selector

3-[(3-cholamidopropyl)-dimethylammoniol-1-propane sulfonate (CHAPS) can be used as an effective chiral selector for the separation of dansyl-amino acids by capillary electrophoresis (CE). While CHAPS can serve as an chiral selector, better enantiomeric separation can be performed by using CHAPS not as the sole chiral selector but as one of a [CHAPS-SDS-cyclodextrin] three-component system. In this CHAPS-SDS-CD system, enantiomeric separations of the amino acids can be readily accomplished by judiciously adjusting the pH of the solution, concentrations of CHAPS and SDS, and the concentration and type of CD. All amino acids can be baseline resolved in less than 15 minutes with resolution as high as 2.01 at pH 6.5 with 50 mM of CHAPS and 75 mM of SDS. The resolution is also dependent on the size of the CD. Substantial increase in the resolution can be readily achieved by replacing β-CD with γ-CD. For example, theRs for Leu was increased by four-folds (from 1.65 to 6.29) while the elution time still remains as short as 20 min when β-CD was replaced by γ-CD.