Enzyme assay for d-amino acid oxidase using optically gated capillary electrophoresis-laser induced fluorescence detection

Because d-amino acids (AAs) play an essential role in the regulation of many processes in living cells, detection of D-AAs and assay of d-amino acid oxidase (DAAO) activity are of vital importance in bioanalytical science. However, the reliability and accuracy of DAAO assays could be interfered due to the facts that DAAO presents broad substrate activity towards different D-AAs and there could be abundant L-AA enantiomers in biological samples. In this study we presented the first application of optically gated capillary electrophoresis with LIF detection (OGCE-LIF) for efficient assay of DAAO activity. High repeatability of the OGCE-LIF assay of amino acids (AAs) was achieved with relative standard deviation (RSD) (n = 15) less than 1.5% and 2.7% for migration time and peak height, respectively. Under the optimal OGCE-LIF conditions, five pairs of D/L-AA enantiomers were efficiently separated in less than 1 min with low limit of detection of 1.3 μM. Enzymatic assays of DAAO were successfully achieved by detection the substrate consumption with OGCE-LIF, for either single or mixed AA substrates. Kinetic analysis of the parallel oxidation reactions of two different substrates was performed, which was in good agreement with the experimental results. Our study indicates OGCE-LIF can perform rapid and efficient separation of mixed pairs of AA enantiomers and is a promising method for quantitatively assaying DAAO catalyzed reaction with the presence of L-AA enantiomers in the sample. Our study would pave the way for accurate determination of D-AAs and DAAO enzymes in complicated biological samples.