Abstract: The technology of precolumn derivatization, along with high performance liquid chromatography gradient elution method was used in determining contents of amino acids in shellfish products. A high-efficiency AccQ·Tag(Waters) column, acetate-phosphate buffer, acetonitrile, and twice distilled water were prepared in gradient elution. AQC(6-aminoquinoly-N- hydroxysuccinimidy carbamate), a derivation reagent, was used for sample derivatization. Conditions of the test were: column temperature 37℃, wavelength 248nm and flow rate 1.0ml/min.The results showed that concentration of amino acids and peak areas achieve a nice linear relations (r is higher than 0.998) with linear range 10～80μmol/L. RSD is of 2.1%～4.8%. The limit of detection is 0.23μmol/L. The ranges of recovery of amino acids are from 91.3%～113.2%.

Key words: high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), gradient elution, precolumn derivatization, amino acids