Chiral Separation of Lactic Acid in Culture Media and Cells of Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. lactis as O-Pentafluoropropionylated (S)-(+)-3-Methyl-2-Butyl Ester by Achiral Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

The enantiomeric separation of lactic acid for its absolute configuration has become important task for understanding its biological origin and metabolic process involved in the formation of lactic acid. It involves the conversion of enantiomers as diastereomeric O-pentafluoropropionylated (S)-(+)-3-methyl-2-butyl ester and the direct separation by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry on a achiral capillary column. The (R)- and (S)-lactic acids were completely separated with a high resolution of 1.9. The newly developed method showed good linearity (r ${\geq}$ 0.999), precision (% relative standard deviation = 3.4-6.2), and accuracy (% relative error = -7.7-1.4) with the detection limit of 0.011 ${\mu}g/mL$. When the method was applied to determine the absolute configuration of lactic acid in Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. lactis 304 (LAB 304), the composition (%) of (R)-lactic acid in the cell pellet and in the culture medium were $89.0{\pm}0.1$ and $78.2{\pm}0.4$, respectively. Thus, it was verified that the present method is useful for the identification and composition test of lactic enantiomers in microorganisms.