Optimization of a gas chromatography–mass spectrometry method with methyl chloroformate derivatization for quantification of amino acids in plant tissue

• An amino acid quantification method based on SPE and GC–MS in plants was optimized.
• Optimization of SPE clean up yielded recovery rates above 95% for 19 amino acids.
• 16 proteinogenic amino acids could be quantified in up to 50 mg leaf tissue.
• A case study on the aspartate super pathway proves applicability of the method.

Rapid, easy and reliable quantification of amino acids is crucial in research on plant amino acid metabolism and nutritional improvement of crops via enrichment of essential amino acids. A recently reported analysis method, based on solid phase extraction (SPE), derivatization with methyl chloroformate and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was optimized and tested on three-week-old Arabidopsis thaliana leaf tissues. Optimization of the SPE cleanup yielded recovery rates of minimum 95% for all amino acids (except arginine). Variations in accuracy and precision did not exceed 12.5%, except for cysteine, histidine and tryptophane, which were excluded from analysis. Quantification of overlapping peaks for isoleucine/threonine and proline/asparagine was possible by selection of two specific fragment ions for each amino acid. Of the 16 selected amino acids, 14 were quantified successfully in at least 75% of the samples, while methionine and tyrosine were only quantifiable in 6% and 42%, respectively. A case study on the aspartate super pathway confirmed the applicability of the optimized method on wild type and genetically modified plants: external supplementation of methionine or lysine yielded a 146-fold or 27-fold increase in the respective absolute amino acid levels compared with the control treatment. Induced expression of dhdps-r1 (a mutated lysine biosynthesis gene encoding a feedback insensitive enzyme) caused an 83-fold increase in absolute lysine levels.