Human erythropoietin （hEPO）, an endogenous glycoprotein, plays a fundamental role in erythropoiesis controlling the formation of red blood cells. Production of recombinant human erythropoietin （rhEPO） has made it possible for its abuse in competitive sports. In this work, pre-capillary and on-capillary derivatization by 5-furoylquinoline-3-carboxaldehyde （FQ） and fluorescein isothiocyanate （FITC） for the detection of rhEPO by capillary electrophoresis with laser-induced fluorescence detection （CE-LIF） were compared. FQ pre-capillary labeling improves sensitivity but degrades the glycoforms separation due to the inhomogeneity of the reaction products from multiple labeling. Compared with FITC pre-capillary derivatization with the excess fluorescent background, the on-capillary FQ derivatization method can provide shorter analysis time, lower background, and better selectivity. It is demonstrated that, through optimizing reaction conditions of FQ on-capillary derivatization, both high sensitivity and satisfactory resolution for the analysis of the be used for the glycoforms profiling and quality control of rhEPO doping control analysis. glycoforms of rhEPO could be obtained. This method can It may be used as a candidate method for fast screening in
