Capillary electrophoresis to quantitate gossypol enantiomers in cotton flower petals and seed

• Published in: Journal of chromatography. B, Analytical technologies in the biomedical and life sciences Analytical technologies in the biomedical and life sciences, 2012-11, Vol.908, p.94-97
• Main Authors: Vshivkov, Sergey, Pshenichnov, Egor, Golubenko, Zamira, Akhunov, Alik, Namazov, Shadman, Stipanovic, Robert D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: (+)-Gossypol; (−)-Gossypol; Capillary electrophoresis; chromatography; corolla; cotton; Cottonseed; detection limit; Electrophoresis, Capillary - methods; enantiomers; Flowers - chemistry; Gossypium - chemistry; Gossypol - analysis; Gossypol - chemistry; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; Limit of Detection; monogastric livestock; plant tissues; Reproducibility of Results; Seeds - chemistry; Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet; Stereoisomerism; Temperature; toxicity
• ISSN: 1570-0232; 1873-376X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jchromb.2012.09.033

► Gossypol occurs as a mixture of enantiomers in cottonseed. ► (−)-Gossypol is more toxic to non-ruminant animals. ► Plant breeders are developing plants with a low percent of (−)gossypol. ► A capillary electrophoresis method was developed to quantitate the enantiomers. ► Breeders can use this method to select plants with the low (−)gossypol seed trait. Gossypol is a toxic compound that occurs as a mixture of enantiomers in cotton plant tissues including seed and flower petals. The (−)-enantiomer is more toxic to non-ruminant animals. Efforts to breed cottonseed with a low percentage of (−)-gossypol requires determination of the (+)- to (−)-gossypol ratio in seed and flower petals. We report a method to quantitatively determine the total gossypol and percent of its enantiomers in cotton tissues using high performance capillary electrophoresis (HPCE). The method utilizes a borate buffer at pH 9.3 using a capillary with internal diameter of 50μm, effective length of 24.5cm, 15kV and cassette temperature of 15°C. This method provides high accuracy and reproducible results with a limit of detection of the individual enantiomers of less than 36ng/mL providing base line separation in less than 6min.