Capillary electrophoresis for detection and quantitation of domoic acid in mussels

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) was utilized to quantitate the domoic acid content in mussel tissues. The analyses were conducted on samples obtained by aqueous extraction of the tissues. Lipids were removed from the extract in order to facilitate electroendomosis and to shorten analysis time. Satisfactory resolution of domoic acid was accomplished with 300 mM CAPS buffer at pH 10.25 or 10.30 and the electrophoresis time was less than 10 minutes per sample. A procedure was devised for quantitation of domoic acid in the mussel extracts. Application of this procedure on a sample of naturally contaminated mussel homogenate yielded results in close agreement with those reported in the literature.