Rapid Determination of Chiral Amino Acids by LC-Q-TOF Mass Spectrometry

Department of Life Science & Biotechnology, Korea University, KoreaReceived October 9, 2011, Accepted October 21, 2011Key Words : Isomer, Amino acid, HPLC, LC/TOFMSThe discovery of molecular asymmetry by Pasteur in 1848established the foundation for our understanding of mole-cular chirality. Recently, the interest in safe food andpharmaceuticals has been increasing owing to increase ofelderly population with longer average life expectancyaccording to improvements in income levels and develop-ment of medical technology. Isomers are compounds withthe same molecular formula but different dimensional struc-tures and dissimilar properties.