Derivatization in liquid chromatography for mass spectrometric detection.

Liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC/ESI-MS/MS) has been frequently utilized for the sensitive and selective determination of the trace level compounds in biological samples. In LC/ESI-MS/MS, chemical derivatization is sometimes used to enhance the detection sensitivity of the analytes. This review presents an overview of the derivatization reagents in LC/ESI-MS/MS that have been applied to the low molecular weight compounds in recent five years (2008-2012).