Fluorosurfactant-prepared triangular gold nanoparticles as postcolumn chemiluminescence reagents for high-performance liquid chromatography assay of low molecular weight aminothiols in biological fluids

Our recent study demonstrates the synthesized triangular gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) by trisodium citrate reduction of HAuCl4 in the presence of nonionic fluorosurfactant (FSN) could display stronger catalytic activity towards luminol-chemiluminescence (CL) than spherical AuNPs. Ultratrace aminothiols may cause a great decrease in CL intensity of the triangular AuNPs–luminol CL system. In this article, we utilize the as-prepared triangular AuNPs as novel postcolumn CL reagents to explore a simple high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-CL method for the determination of low molecular weight aminothiols (i.e., cysteine, homocysteine, glutathione, cysteinylglycine and glutamylcysteine). The as-prepared triangular AuNPs were easier to synthesize, stable at a wider pH range and high ionic strength, and highly selective and sensitive towards reduced aminothiols. The detection limits at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3 for cysteine, homocysteine, glutathione, cysteinylglycine and glutamylcysteine were 0.016, 0.08, 0.1, 0.04 and 0.1 pmol, respectively. Recoveries from spiked urine and plasma samples were 95.7–104.3%. The applicability of the proposed method has been validated by determining these low molecular weight aminothiols in human urine and plasma samples with satisfactory results, and thus it will have great potential application in clinical diagnosis.

► The as-prepared triangular AuNPs exhibit highly selective and sensitive towards aminothiols.
► The as-prepared triangular AuNPs are used as novel postcolumn chemiluminescence reagents.
► The linear ranges for these aminothiols reach two orders of magnitude.
► The limits of detection for these aminothiols are found in the range of 0.016–0.1 pmol.