by
lmh » Mon May 16, 2011 9:02 am
Someone asked about Waters' uplc kit. I've used their conventional (not UPLC) AccQ tag kit and must say it works very well. The derivatised amino acids are stable for ever at -20 (well, almost for ever. I've made fairly casual checks up to about a month). The kit is very easy to use. The downside is the cost. The column is actually a C18 I believe, and you can use the Waters kit with other C18 columns if you're prepared to do a bit of method development, and then you only have to buy the reagent kit, which makes the process more cost-effective. The conventional kit does have an optional instruction book. I'm very angry with Waters about this book. When we first bought the kit, none of the local reps was able to tell me whether it came with instructions, so we bought the book too. It cost about £40, and turned out to be a pathetically thin little booklet containing very little more information than the A4 sheet that did indeed come with the derivatisation kit. It had big line drawings of pipettes and flasks and things, in case we didn't know what they looked like. I did comment to the rep that perhaps someone had made a mistake in the pricing. It really was a dismal waste of money and stirred up sufficient Waters-hatred locally that I had difficulty persuading my boss to consider Waters in the next equipment purchase we made (Waters reps reading this, note well!).
Of course Waters are not the only company to make a commercial amino-acid kit that covers Proline.
