Improved continuous-flow method for detemination of total serum hexosamines.

We describe an automated determination of serum hexosamine by the Elson-Morgan reaction, together with reagent modifications that minimiz interference from amino acids and sugars present in acid hydrolysates of sera. We used a novel 15-min autoclave procedure for the acid hydrolysis of sera before analysis to facilitate the detemination as compared to the 4-h hydrolysis used in the conventional manual method. Results correlated well (r = 0.906) with those obtained by the corresponding manual method.