Quantification of urinary 5-aminolevulinic acid by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

• Published in: Journal of chromatography. B, Analytical technologies in the biomedical and life sciences Vol. 806; no. 1; pp. 19 - 23
• Main Authors: Shinka, Toshihiro, Kuhara, Tomiko
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 25.06.2004; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: 5-Aminolevulinic acid; Aminolevulinic Acid - urine; Analysis; Analytical, structural and metabolic biochemistry; Biological and medical sciences; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry - methods; General pharmacology; Humans; Medical sciences; Pharmacology. Drug treatments; Reference Standards; Tyrosinemias - urine; 5-Aminolevulinic acid; Creatinine; Human; Urine; Gas chromatography; Biological fluid; Spectrometry; Tyrosinemia; Investigation method; Quantitative analysis
• ISSN: 1570-0232; 1873-376X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jchromb.2004.02.026

In this report, we describe a method for the specific quantification of urinary 5-aminolevulinic acid. It is based on gas chromatographic mass spectrometric measurement of the trimethylsilyl ester of the ethylacetoacetate pyrrole derivative of 5-aminolevulinic acid. Selected ion monitoring (SIM) was used for quantification using 3-hydroxymyristic acid as an internal standard. The detection limit of this method was 0.1 nmol/ml. This method was applied to the determination of urinary 5-aminolevulinic acid from a tyrosinemia type I patient and normal subjects, and 21.4 mmol/mol creatinine and 0.54±0.49 mmol/mol creatinine ( n=7), respectively, were detected. Less than 0.2 ml urine was sufficient for the determination of 5-aminolevulinic acid in healthy subjects.