Sensitive determination of domoic acid using high-performance liquid chromatography with electrogenerated tris(2,2'-bipyridine)ruthenium(III) chemiluminescence detection.

A new sensitive determination method of domoic acid based on the chemiluminescent reaction of tris(2,2'-bipyridine)ruthenium(III) has been developed. The method exhibited good reproducibility. The relative standard deviation of six replicate measurements was 1.6% for 10 ng ml(-1). A calibration graph, based on a standard domoic acid solution, was linear over the range of 1 - 500 ng ml(-1) (coefficient of correlation, r2 = 0.9995) and the detection limit was 8 pg (signal-to-noise ratio = 3) without any preconcentration and derivatization steps. This new method was successfully applied to a real sample of blue mussels spiked with 2 microg g(-1) domoic acid.