Determination of urinary prostanoids by capillary gas chromatography/high-resolution mass spectrometry

A stable isotope-dilution gas-chromatography/high-resolution mass spectrometry method for the determination of prostaglandin E₂ (PGE₂) and 6-keto-prostaglandin F_1α (6-keto-PGF_1α) in urine as their methoxime/t-butyldimethylsilyl ether/t-butyl-dimethylsilyl ester derivatives is described. The derivatives are prepared by a novel derivatization scheme in which the pentafluorobenzyl esters are formed prior to the silylation step in which the t-butyldimethylsilyl esters are formed in an apparent exchange reaction. Recoveries through the entire extraction and derivatization procedure are 70.6% for PGE₂ and 64.4% for 6-keto-PGF_1α. Quantitation at mass resolutions approaching 10 000 eliminated all interferences in the PGE₂ chromatograms while lower resolutions were sufficient for 6-keto-PGF_1α. Limits of detection of 50 pg ml^?1 for each prostanoid were obtained. For PGE₂, a lower limit of detection was obtained at a mass resolution of 10 000 (50 pg ml^?1) than was obtained at a mass resolution of 1000 (80 pg ml^?1), illustrating the selectivity of detection.