Monosaccharides play important roles
in plant growth and development,
and their biofunctions are closely related to their endogenous contents.
Therefore, the determination of monosaccharides is beneficial for
the further study of monosaccharide biofunction. In this work, we
developed a liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry analytical
method assisted by a post-column derivatization technique (LC–PCD–MS)
for the fast and automatic determination of 16 monosaccharides in
samples. Post-column chemical derivatization of monosaccharides was
performed by a reaction of monosaccharides with 4-benzylaminobenzeneboronic
acid (4-PAMBA) through boronate ester formation in a three-way connector.
4-PAMBA worked as a derivatization reagent to improve the selectivity
and sensitivity of monosaccharide detection by MS. The developed LC–PCD–MS
method integrates LC separation, chemical derivatization, and MS detection
in one run, thus greatly reducing the analysis time for each sample.
The limits of detection and limits of quantification for 16 monosaccharides
were in the range of 0.002–0.1 and 0.007–0.5 ng/mL,
respectively. Good linearity was obtained from the linear regression,
with a determination coefficient (R
2)
ranging from 0.9928 to 1.0000. The relative recoveries were in the
range of 80.7–117.8%, with the intra- and interday relative
standard deviations less than 19.7 and 16.5%, respectively, indicating
good accuracy and acceptable reproducibility of the method. Finally,
the method was successfully applied to investigate the spatial and
temporal distribution of 16 monosaccharides in the developing flower
and germinating seed of Arabidopsis thaliana.