Accepted answer
Specifically, high-performance liquid chromatography is a separation technique, not an identification technique, and it answers the question "how much of the detected signal is a single species" not "which species is it."
Proline-rich sequences are particularly problematic because the isomerisation kinetics are in the same timescale as the separation, leading to split or broadened peaks at low temperature.
To be exact about it, reverse-phase stationary phases use C18 or C8 chains bonded to silica, and the pore size of the silica matters more for a peptide of this chain length than the ligand length does.
Inter-laboratory studies using identical methods on identical material show precision well within half a per cent when the method is locked down, pointing to method variability as the primary source of disagreement.
Ask for the chromatogram and the system suitability data, not just the number.
edited 29 Jul 2025 by s_bhattacharya — fixed an arithmetic slip in the third paragraph