Abstract:After lactose and fat, human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) are the third most abundant nutrient in human milk. They are very important for the healthy growth of infants. A quantitative method has been developed and validated for the determination of 6 main HMOs in human milk, including 3-fucosyllactose (3-FL), 2’-fucosyllactose (2’-FL), lacto-N-neotetraose (LNnT), lacto-N-tetraose (LNT), 6’-sialyllactose (6’-SL) and 3’-sialyllactose (3’-SL), by ion chromatography(IC). In addition, another active compound sialic acid (Neu5Ac) in human milk could be determined at the same time. A portion of human milk sample was diluted by water and subjected to IC analysis after filtration. Water, sodium hydroxide solution, and sodium acetate solution were used as mobile phase. CarboPacTM PA-1 analytical column and pulsed amperometric detector (PAD) were adopted for IC separation and detection, respectively. The method validation results showed a good linearity(r>0.999) in the analytical range for all the 7 analytes. The limit of detection (LOD, 3 s/n) and limit of quantitation(LOQ) of the method for each analyte were 5.2, 0.4, 2.8, 2.5, 1.0, 1.8, 0.5 mg/L human milk and 19.8, 9.8, 19.9, 19.7, 9.9, 9.9, 5.0 mg/L human milk, respectively. The analytical range and LOQ meet detection requirements of all types of human milk samples including the secretory and non-secretory three-stage human milk. The recovery of each analyte in human milk were all within 90.3%-107.3% (n=6) with a good precision (RSD%<3.7%, n=6). This method provides a simple and fast approach for the accurate determination of HMOs and free sialic acid in human milk.