A new approach to quantitative determination of γ-glutamyl-valyl-glycine in various aquatic products

A new method for determining the content of γ-glutamyl-valyl-glycine (γ-Glu-Val-Gly, γ-EVG) using high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) with precolumn derivatization by 2,4-Dinitrochlorobenzene (CDNB) was developed. The method exhibited satisfactory linear relationship ( R 2 = 0.9995) at concentrations ranging from 1.0 to 40.0 ng/mL. The limits of detection (LOD) and quantitation (LOQ) were 0.3 and 0.9 ng/mL, respectively. Recoveries of the target peptide in spiked samples were between 83.05% and 116.49%, showing the values of relative standard deviation (RSD) less than 10%. The intra-day and the inter-day precisions were calculated to be 7.13% and 8.54% ( n = 6), respectively. The validated approach was effectively applied to quantify the γ-EVG levels (0.13–0.38 μg/g) in different aquatic products. In conclusions, a sensitive, low-cost, convenient and reliable approach was developed for the detection of γ-EVG, which can serve as a potential tool for evaluating flavor peptide quality of aquatic products.