Determination of phytic acid and inositol pentakisphosphates in foods by high-performance ion chromatography.

A high-performance anion exchange chromatographic method was adapted for the quantitative determination of phytic acid and inositol pentakisphosphate isomers (excluding enantiomers) in foods. Because of the cost and limited availability of inositol phosphate standards, a phytic acid sodium salt standard was used for the calculation of an average relative response factor for the quantification of inositol pentakisphosphate isomers, and the purity of phytic acid sodium salt standard was also accurately established. The detection limits (S/N = 3) for phytic acid and inositol pentakisphosphates were in the range of 1.5-3.4 microM (0.1-0.2 microg/100 microL). This method has been successfully applied to the determination of phytic acid and inositol pentakisphosphates in a variety of beans and nuts after extraction with 0.5 M HCl and cleanup with solid phase extraction cartridges. The results demonstrated that there was a strong correlation between either the phytic acid content or the total content of phytic acid together with inositol pentakisphosphates and the total dietary fiber content in the group of all raw dry beans and in the group of raw dry black beans but not in the group of raw dry red kidney beans, which was probably due to the insufficient number of the raw dry red kidney bean samples.