GABA Quantification and Method Optimization

What we do:

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) has been found in plant extracts however, the effects of other chemical constituents on the GABA-A receptor are not completely understood. Using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with dansyl chloride derivatization, a method was developed and is being optimized to quantify GABA in natural extracts. This research will give us a better understanding of the role GABA plays in natural extracts and will help us find out which other chemical constituents we can attribute the activation and potentiation effects of the GABA-A receptor to.

How we do it:

High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)- We used HPLC to quantify GABA in natural extracts by running standards and making a calibration curve.

Our Goal:

Consumers of teas with natural extracts such as jasmine and passion flower would have an idea of which constituents in their teas are responsible for the anxiolytic properties that “calming teas” advertise.

Interested in learning more:

Email me at dshepherd@muhlenberg.edu.

What we do for fun

The chemistry department does yearly lab vs lab bowling and mini golf tournaments which was a great way to build community and engage with the other chemistry labs. It was also very fun to do something like that with the professors and be with them in a more casual setting.

Communicating our work

My partner and I are writing a research paper to culminate everything we’ve done, we’ll be creating and presenting a poster in the fall for the work we’ve done, and we did a talk at the Friday Forums over the summer.

What research is like?

The first thing we did every day is have a meeting with our professor discussing the goals for that day. Then we auto-purged and flushed the HPLC to prep it for running samples. The sample prep involved derivatizing GABA with Dansyl chloride and leaving the samples in a water bath to catalyze derivatization. Our sample prep ranged from 2-3 hours depending on our goals for the day. Then we ran the HPLC samples. While the HPLC was running, there was a lot of free time for us to hang out and talk to other students. We would meet with other lab groups in the same department sharing our research with others over lunch and playing board games. After the samples were done in the HPLC we would spend the rest of the day analyzing our data and preparing for the next day of research.