Amino Acid Determination

Amino Acid Analysis (AAA) is an integral part of analytical biochemistry. In a relatively short time, the variety of AAA methods has evolved dramatically with more methods shifting to the use of mass spectrometry (MS) as a detection method. Another new aspect is miniaturization. However, most importantly, AAA in this day and age should be viewed in the context of Metabolomics as a part of Systems Biology. Amino Acid Analysis: Methods and Protocols presents a broad spectrum of all available methods allowing for readers to choose the method that most suits their particular laboratory set-up and analytical needs. In this volume, a reader can find chapters describing general as well as specific approaches to the sample preparation. A number of chapters describe specific applications of AAA in clinical chemistry as well as in food analysis, microbiology, marine biology, drug metabolism, even archeology. Separate chapters are devoted to the application of AAA for protein quantitation and chiral AAA. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular BiologyTM series format, chapters contain introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and notes on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and accessible, Amino Acid Analysis: Methods and Protocols provides crucial techniques that can be applied across multiple disciplines by anyone involved in biomedical research or life sciences.

A collection of classic and cutting-edge techniques of high utility in answering specific biological questions about amino acids. Common methods include those based on HPLC or gas chromatography separation and analysis after precolumn derivatization. New techniques based on capillary electrophoresis separation, high-performance anion exchange chromatography, and mass spectrometry are also presented. Each method is described in step-by-step detail to ensure successful experimental results and emphasizes sample preparation, particularly the collection and storage of bodily fluids. Up-to-date and highly practical, Amino Acid Analysis Protocols offers analytical and clinical chemists, as well as a broad range of biological and biomedical investigators, a rich compendium of laboratory tools for the productive analysis of both common and uncommon amino acids.

This second edition of The Physician's Guide provides paediatricians and other physicians with a unique aid to help them select the correct diagnosis from a bewildering array of complex clinical and laboratory data. Delay and mistakes in the diagnosis of inherited metabolic diseases may have devastating consequences. The guide, which includes a CD-ROM, describes 298 disorders which have been grouped into 35 chapters according to the type of condition. Within each group of disorders, chapters provide tables of pertinent clinical findings as well as reference and pathological values for crucial metabolites. Relevant metabolic pathways and diagnostic flow charts are included. There are three indices to make the book as user-friendly as possible.

"All the King's horses and all the King's mm couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again." It is entirely possible that the difficulty facing "all the King's men" was principally the lack of a sufficient guide to the techniques of reassembling from a series of small components, the original entity. It is the sincere hope of the editor of the present work and of each of the contributing authors that the modern researcher will not face a similar predicament in his endeavours to reconstruct the complete primary sequence of a protein from the array of component amino acids. Rather, it is the intent that, with this volume, he may proceed untimorously if not with outright confidence toward achieving his purpose. To the newcomer in protein sequencing, compelled by necessity, or fascination, to investigate the exact order of amino acids in proteins, the question of "where to begin" - or "how to do it" is urgent. To those more skilled, a ready source of additional techniques should nevertheless be of value. This volume attempts to present in a single source a discussion of the methods and techniques useful to the determination of the primary structures of proteins and peptides. Hopefully, this book will tell the reader "how to do it".