A metrological approach for the assessment of selenium status in human serum

This work addresses a metrological approach for the assessment of Se status in humans in terms of serum selenomethionine (SeMet). The quantification of SeMet was carried out using a primary method of chemical analysis, namely species-specific isotope dilution (SSID) in combination with HPLC coupled to collision/reaction cell inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. SeMet was released from the serum selenoalbumin (a seleno-containing protein where SeMet is randomly incorporated) by enzymatic hydrolysis of the whole serum. This study is a follow-up of the analytical method development reported previously, and it focuses primarily on the evaluation of the uncertainty budget and the main uncertainty sources for SeMet determination in three commercial serums, namely BCR-637 (certified for total Se) and two serum standards, SERONORM level 1 (SERO-L1) and 2 (SERO-L2) (with indicative concentrations of total Se). The metrological approach reported here could be considered as a pilot study in terms of metrological determination of SeMet in human serum, hence being suitable for method validation and inter-laboratory comparison.     

Determining urea levels in dialysis human serum by means of headspace solid phase microextraction coupled with ion mobility spectrometry and on the basis of nanostructured polypyrrole film

A simple and sensitive headspace (HS) solid phase microextraction (SPME) coupled with ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) method is presented for analysis of urea in dialysis human serum samples. A dodecylbenzenesulfonate-doped polypyrrole coating was used as a fiber for SPME. The HS-SPME–IMS method exhibits good repeatability (relative standard deviation of 3 % or less), simplicity, and good sensitivity. The influence of various analytical parameters such as pH, ionic strength, extraction time and temperature was investigated and the parameters were optimized. The calibration graph was linear in the range from 5 to 50 μg mL^?1, and the detection limit was 2 μg mL^?1. The method was applied successfully for determination of urea in human serum and with acceptable recovery (more than 98 %). Finally, a standard addition calibration method was applied to the HS-SPME-IMS method for the analysis of human serum samples before and at the end of dialysis. The proposed method appears to be suitable for the analysis of urea in serum samples as it is not time-consuming and requires only small quantities of the sample without any derivatization process.

Determination of the sodium monofluoroacetate in serum by gas chromatography

Summary Sodium monofluoroacetate (NAFAc) has been widely used for vertebrate pest control, such as rabbits in Australia. However, NAFAc is extremely toxic to all vertebrates and its use is restricted. Although this compound is stringently restricted, the occurrence of accidental and homicidal poisoning is na ever-present possibility. The method developed in this work shows the applicability of SPE with alumina cartridges for the extraction of NAFAc from serum samples. The method is efficient with recoveries of at least 96.8% from spiked serum. The samples were subsequently derivatized with dicyclohexyl-cabodiimide (DCC), using 2,4-dichloroaniline (DCA), to make the product volatile for GC analysis.     

Improved normal-phase and reversed-phase gradient high-performance liquid chromatography procedures for the analysis of retinoids and carotenoids in human serum, plant and animal tissues.

Two high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) procedures, a rapid normal-phase isocratic method for the analysis primarily of retinol and retinoic acid on a 3 mu silica column, and a reversed-phase gradient method for the simultaneous analysis of retinoids and very polar to nonpolar carotenoids on a 3 mu C18 column, are described. The normal-phase isocratic HPLC procedure is rapid (12 min), requires a sample size of 100 microl or less of serum, and is suitable for routine analysis of retinol in any serum, and of retinol and retinoic acid in serum after administration of retinoic acid. The reversed-phase gradient method is suitable for the simultaneous analysis of very polar to nonpolar carotenoids such as epoxy-xanthophylls and xanthophyll esters, along with other carotenoids and retinoids that occur normally in human serum and other plant and animal tissues. A run time of 30-70 min is necessary, depending on the presence or absence of xanthophyll esters in the sample.     

Polarography of the alkaline-earth metals--II: The adsorption wave for the Magnesium-Eriochrome Black T complex

Magnesium-Eriochrome Black T in ethylenediamine medium gives a polarographic adsorptive wave at -0.7 V (vs. an Ag/Hg electrode). It gives a limit of detection for magnesium of 2 x 10(-8)M. It is made the basis of a method for determination of magnesium in serum, water and various salts, without any pretreatment. The method is very rapid, sensitive and convenient for serum analysis.     

Determination of nitrazepam in serum by gas-liquid chromatography. Application in bioavailability studies.

A gas chromatographic method with electron capture detection has been developed for the analysis of nitrazepam in serum. N-Desmethyldiazepam is used as internal standard. Nitrazepam isolated from serum is converted by acid hydrolysis into 2-amino 5 nitrobenzophenone, which is chromatographed. Metabolites of nitrazepam (7-amino and 7-acetamido compounds) are not included in the determination. Recovery experiments showed that the method is quantitative. The limit of detection is 5 ng/ml of nitrazepam in serum. The method has been used for measuring serum concentrations of nitrazepam in bioavailability studies on subjects given a single dose of nitrazepam tablets.     

基于超高效液相色谱-四极杆飞行时间高分辨质谱的高通量血清代谢组学方法

采用超高效液相色谱-四极杆飞行时间高分辨质谱(UPLC-QTOFMS)联用技术, 对血清前处理进行了考察和优化, 并对液-质联用分析条件进行了优化, 旨在建立用于血清中广谱小分子代谢物分析的高通量强耐用代谢组学方法, 以期满足大批次生物样本数代谢组学研究的要求(样本数≥400个). 通过考察不同有机溶剂沉淀蛋白对血清中蛋白的去除程度及38个代表性标准品化合物的提取效果, 确定采用甲醇/乙腈(体积比1: 9)沉淀蛋白法. 血清和有机溶剂的体积比不小于1: 4时, 达到最佳的沉淀蛋白处理效果, 符合大批量样本测试的要求; 预先冷藏沉淀蛋白的有机溶剂, 涡旋2 min, 超声1 min, 加入有机溶剂后冷冻静置10 min, 可以进一步提高前处理沉淀蛋白和化合物提取的效果. 通过对不同流动相体系和梯度条件的考察, 对液-质联用分析条件进行了优化. 方法学考察结果表明, 本方法重现性、 精密度及稳定性均良好. 对重现性和48 h稳定性数据进行变异系数分析和主成分分析法的多维分析, 证明本方法在代谢组学研究中的可重复性及所得数据的可靠性. 本方法高通量强耐用, 每天可测定100多个血清样本(13 min测定1个样本), 适用于代谢组学研究, 特别是大批次生物样本的代谢组学研究.     

Interfacial tensiometry method for the analysis of model systems in comparison with blood as the most important biological liquid

Interfacial tensiometry of various liquids is an informative colloid-chemical method for the analysis of various liquids in many areas of natural sciences and medical practice. This method of dynamic surface tension (DST) measurements is proposed for the study of animal blood plasma or serum and mixtures of proteins, lipids, and salts as model systems. It is found that the saline affects lecithin aqueous dispersions significantly more weakly than those of the proteins. The DST values and biochemical parameters of the bovine blood serum of the same sample are obtained. Correlations between DST values and biochemical parameters of blood serum are found. They are both of fundamental and practical importance in laboratory diagnostics.     

An Improved Microanalytical Procedure for the Quantitation of Procainamide and N-Acetyl Procainamide in Serum by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

A high-performance liquid chromatographic method for analysis of procainamide (PA), and N-acetyl procainamide (NAPA) is presented. Sample preparation employs a simple base-acid double extraction procedure and analysis is carried out on a reverse phase chromatographic system using a μBondapak C₁₈ column and buffered aqueous acetonitrile as the mobile phase. The extraction procedure gives quantitative recovery of both PA and NAPA, and chromatographic results show that drug levels of as low as 0.3 mg per liter of serum can be conveniently analyzed without significant background interferences. The small volume (0.2 ml) of serum needed to perform an analysis makes this method suitable for pharmacokinetic studies in humans and animals as well as for clinical therapeutic drug monitoring studies.     

Sensitive method for the determination of vincristine in human serum by high-performance liquid chromatography after on-line column-extraction.

A column-switching high-performance liquid chromatographic method was developed for the determination of vincristine in serum. Sample preparation was carried out by means of on-line column-extraction, using a C18 reversed-phase preconcentration column. This technique is simple (minimizing manual sampling errors), rapid (reduction of time and costs) and can be easily automated. Both ultraviolet and electrochemical detection are possible, but the latter shows a cleaner chromatogram and is, by the use of a new electrochemical detector, far more sensitive (detection limit 0.3 microgram/l at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3). A matrix study was carried out (using human serum and urine and two kinds of calf's serum). Although it appeared that the system was matrix-dependent, no difference in matrix effects could be found in the serum or plasma of different patients. Controls for human serum analysis should be prepared in human serum. With the method described, pharmacokinetic studies of vincristine in children can be performed.     

Determination of the ubiquinol-10 and ubiquinone-10 (coenzyme Q10) in human serum by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry to evaluate the oxidative stress

A method for the rapid and simultaneous determination of ubiquinone-10 (coenzyme Q10, CoQ(10)) and the reduced form ubiquinol-10 (CoQ(10)H(2)) in human serum by LC-MS-MS with electrospray ionization (ESI) in the positive mode is here proposed. High selective identification and sensitive quantitation of both analytes have been carried out by monitoring the transition from the corresponding precursor ion to the product ion. Prior to the chromatographic analysis, serum samples (100 microl) were subject to a conventional pre-treatment based on protein precipitation, liquid-liquid extraction, evaporation to dryness and reconstitution with 95:5 methanol/hexane (v/v). The overall method has enabled to achieve low detection limits--5.49 and 15.8 ng/ml for CoQ(10) and CoQ(10)H(2), respectively--which were estimated with serum. The accuracy and potential matrix effects have been studied with spiked serum resulting recoveries between 92.82 and 106.97%. The proposed method has been applied to serum samples from healthy middle-age women, in which the CoQ(10)H(2)/CoQ(10) ratio has been used as marker of oxidative stress.     

Aqueous chromatographic system for the quantification of propofol in biological fluids using a temperature-responsive polymer modified stationary phase

A new method for the quantitative analysis of monkey serum propofol, which is widely used as an anaesthetic agent, was developed by utilizing a temperature-responsive polymer of N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) and butyl methacrylate (BMA) as the stationary phase of HPLC–fluorescence detection. This poly(NIPAAm-co-BMA) copolymer undergoes a reversible phase transition from a hydrophilic to a hydrophobic microstructure when triggered by change in the temperature. Also this chromatographic system is possible to separate the analytes by using only water as a mobile phase. A pretreatment of the serum (80 μL) was only solid-phase extraction, and the recovery rate of propofol and internal standard was more than 77%, respectively. This method covered the calibration range from 0.5 μg/mL to 10 μg/mL and allowed a reproducible quantification of the serum propofol in administrated monkey serum. The intra- and inter-assay relative standard deviations were less than 14.1%. In addition, there was good relationship of the quantification values between the developed method and the widely used reversed-phase HPLC method. Our developed method has proven to be useful for a simple analysis of propofol in clinical practice, because the avoidance of complicated mobile phase preparation was possible, and only temperature changing could regulate the retention time of the analyte. In addition, by using water instead of fossil fuel, it is the ideal analytical method according to green chemistry.     

Quantitative determination of the fatty acid composition of human serum lipids by high-performance liquid chromatography

A high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the analysis of the fatty acid composition of human serum lipids with fluorescence detection was examined. Both free and total fatty acids extracted from serum were derivatized with 9-anthryldiazomethane and were analysed using methanol-water (94.7:5.3) as mobile phase. Twelve kinds of fatty acid were detected, both in the free and total fatty acids, and were well separated. Concentrations of individual fatty acids of serum lipids were estimated from an internal standard, heptadecanoic acid. The results correlated well with those from two other quantitative analyses. These results indicate that the high-performance liquid chromatographic analysis of fatty acids is a reliable method for determining individual fatty acids of human serum lipids. The compositions of free fatty acids and total fatty acids of serum lipids were analysed and compared in 27 normal subjects, 27 diabetics, and 20 angina pectoris patients by this method.     

Applicability of direct total reflection X-ray fluorescence analysis in the case of human blood serum samples

Total Reflection X-Ray Fluorescence (TXRF) is a well-established method, mainly applied in the analysis of liquid samples, offering very low detection limits in most of the cases. Direct application of the TXRF method is not so efficient in blood serum analysis, since the high content of the organic matrix increases significantly the background due to Compton scattering. Chemical treatment of the blood serum samples and related preconcentration techniques have been suggested in the literature, but they are time consuming and increase the possibility of adding contaminants in the sample. In this paper, the applicability of direct TXRF analysis in blood serum samples is examined. The insertion of a Mo filter, after the cut-off reflector, has been found to improve significantly the peak-to-background ratio, especially for the elements of interest such as Cu, Zn, Se and Br. The influence of self-absorption phenomena in the quantification procedure was also investigated with respect to the internal standard used and the sample mass analyzed. Precision and accuracy in the analysis was found to be approximately 4% over the whole atomic number range.     

Hydrazide-functionalized magnetic microspheres for the selective enrichment of digested tryptophan-containing peptides in serum

The extreme complexity of protein samples is becoming a great challenge for proteomic analysis, especially for those having large dynamic range of protein abundance. To solve this problem, and to overcome the limitation of the current proteomic technologies, a new method using hydrazide-functionalized magnetic microspheres was established in this study. With this method, tryptophan (Trp)-containing peptides can be selectively and sensitively enriched from complex and low-volume samples. Furthermore, combined with 1D-LC-MS/MS analysis, the strategy was successfully applied to the proteomic study of mouse serum. The proportion of Trp-containing peptides was increased from 19.4% to 80.2% through enrichment, and the complexity of the sample was reduced more than two times. An additional 113 Trp-containing peptides and 48 novel proteins were detected compared to the conventional method. This enrichment method provides a means for identifying more proteins as potential biomarkers in serum and other complex samples.     

Simultaneous analysis of 14 non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in human serum by electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry without chromatography

A method is described for the simultaneous analysis of 14 non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) in human serum using negative electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS). After addition of internal standard and protein precipitation using acetonitrile, samples were transferred to autosampler vials for direct analysis without chromatography. Injection of an air bubble with the sample and a multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) method using argon collision-induced dissociation (CID) of analyte (M-H)^? ions permitted integration of the product ion peak areas to produce reproducible quantitative data over the range of concentrations expected in serum during routine use of these drugs. The method permitted the analysis of 30 samples per hour. Two hundred fifty consecutive analyses did not adversely affect instrument sensitivity.     

Enzymatic determination of cholesterol and triglycerides in serum lipoprotein profiles by asymmetrical flow field-flow fractionation with on-line, dual detection

Alterations of lipoproteins (LPs) and related lipid levels in blood serum are correlated to the risk of coronary artery disease (CAD). Fast, possibly automated methods to obtain complete, multi-parametric LP profiles are therefore welcome to be developed for routine, clinical analysis practice. In this work, asymmetrical flow field-flow fractionation (AF4) with on-line, dual post-fractionation reaction detection (PFRD) is applied to develop a method for single-run, simultaneous quantification of cholesterol (CHOL) and triglycerides (TGs) in each fractionated LP class. The enzymatic reagents used for the post-fractionation reaction are available as commercial kits for certified, standard clinical protocols for the analysis of CHOL and TGs in serum. Using CHOL and glycerol as reference standards, a new procedure is applied to optimize the experimental conditions for PFRD-based, quantitative analysis. Upon optimized PFRD and AF4 conditions, results obtained for the determination of total CHOL (TC), TGs, HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C), and LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) in a set of serum samples from healthy donors are found in agreement with the values provided by a clinical laboratory. The intra-day and inter-day precisions of the method were found always lower than 10% (CV). When the method was applied to serum samples from patients affected by sepsis, differences in CHOL and TG profiles between patients and healthy donors were observed.     

Gas Chromatographic Determination of Ethanol in Rabbit Arterial Serum

Abstract

A glc method utilizing a flame ionization detector was developed for determining ethanol (I) in rabbit arterial serum. Addition of triton X-100 solution containing the internal standard, acetonitrile (II) to rabbit serum was followed by direct injection glc analysis using Porapak Q as the stationary phase. Ethanol was clearly separated from its major metabolite acetaldehyde (III) although the assay was not suitable for determination of III. Accuracy and precision of the method was demonstrated over the concentration range anticipated in acute intravenous dosing of I to rabbits. The method was evaluated in a rabbit which received three different intravenous infusion doses of I at two week intervals and found to be applicable to arterial serum analysis.     

Selection of the wavelength range and spectrophotometric determination of leucovorin and methotrexate in human serum by a net analyte signal based method

Leucovorin (LV) and methotrexate (MTX) were determined in human blood serum samples by using a model based in the net analytical signal concept. The calibration method used is a variation of the original hybrid linear analysis (HLA) method, developed by Goicoechea and Olivieri (HLA/GO). The calibration set was composed by nine serum samples with different amounts of LV and MTX in the range of 0-10 mugml(-1). The selection of the optimum wavelength range involved the calculation of the net analyte signal regression plot for each test sample, in conjunction with the calculation of the minimum error indicator. Relative errors of prediction (REP, %) of 3.0 and 5.3% were calculated for LV and MTX, respectively. Only two factors were necessary to optimize the proposed HLA/GO model. Sensitivity, selectivity, analytical sensitivity and limit of detection of the proposed procedure were calculated. Detection limits of 0.34 and 0.93 mugml(-1) for LV and MTX were determined. The proposed model was tested in the analysis of serum samples, without previous separation steps, obtaining recovery values between 96 and 99%, and between 92 and 103% for LV and MTX, respectively.     

Rapid high-performance liquid chromatographic assay for total homocysteine levels in human serum

A rapid, isocratic high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method is described for the determination of total homocysteine levels in human serum. Prior to reversed-phase HPLC analysis, the serum thiols were derivatized with SBD-F (ammonium 7-fluorobenzo-2-oxa-1,3-diazole-4-sulphonate), a thiolspecific fluorogenic probe which is commercially available. Retention of SBD-homocysteine was sensitive to pH, and a mobile phase pH of 2.1 ensured baseline separation of serum thiols within 6 min. The method is simple, sensitive, reproducible (between-run coefficient of variation of 6.6%) and very suitable for routine determination of serum homocysteine levels in a clinical pathology laboratory.