Determination of d-saccharic acid-1,4-lactone from brewed kombucha broth by high-performance capillary electrophoresis

Kombucha is a health tonic. d-Saccharic acid-1,4-lactone (DSL), a component of kombucha, inhibits the activity of glucuronidase, an enzyme indirectly related with cancers. To date, there is no efficient method to determine the content of DSL in kombucha samples. In this paper, we report a rapid and simple method for the separation and determination of DSL in kombucha samples, using the high-performance capillary electrophoresis (HPCE) method with diode array detection (DAD). With optimized conditions, DSL can be separated in a 50 cm length capillary at a separation voltage of 20 kV in 40 mmol/L borax buffer (pH 6.5) containing 30 mmol/L SDS and 15% methanol (v/v). Quantitative evaluation of DSL was determined by ultraviolet absorption at λ = 190 nm. The relationship between the peak areas and the DSL concentrations, in a specified working range with linear response, was determined by first-order polynomial regression over the range 50–1500 μg/mL with a detection limit of 17.5 μg/mL. Our method demonstrated excellent reproducibility and accuracy with relative standard deviations (RSD) of less than 5% DSL content (n = 5). This is the first report to determine DSL by HPCE. We have successfully applied this method to determine DSL in kombucha samples in various fermented conditions.