Quantitative analysis of carbohydrates using gas-liquid chromatography

Sugars can be analyzed quantitatively as their trimethylsilyl derivatives using gas-liquid chromatography. Standardization of polyethylene glycol succinate columns with α-methylgalactopyranoside as the standard gave a quantitative correlation between GLC relative peak areas and relative molar compositions of sugar standard solutions for: the pentose, ribose; the deoxyhexose, fucose; and the hexoses, glucose, galactose, and mannose. Quantitative data were also obtained for N-acetylamino sugars. Mixtures of sugars were analyzed by using the standardization graphs, and the amounts determined were accurate within 10%. This use of GLC will make it easier for the biochemist to attack problems in carbohydrate chemistry by enabling quantitative work to be done readily on mixtures heretofore difficult to analyze.