Reasearch Advances in Chiral Separation of Amino Acids by Capillary Electrophoresis

Capillary electrophoresis (CE)attracted widespread attention, because of its simple operation, minimal consumption of chemicals and high separation efficiency. It is also the research focus in recent years due to its powerful chiral separation ability. Amino acids are the basic modules of proteins and most of which have chiral centers. Chiral amino acid is an important feature of biological systems. Comparatively large difference in biological activity exists among the amino acid enantiomers. Therefore, chiral separation of amino acids plays an important role in understanding the life activities of both human and animal. In article the development and applications of chiral separation of amino acids by three separation modes of CE, including capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE), micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography (MEKC) and capillary electrochromatography (CEC) in the last five years are reviewed.