Quantitative Assessment of Dietary (Poly)phenol Intake: A High-Throughput Targeted Metabolomics Method for Blood and Urine Samples.

Many studies have associated the consumption of (poly)phenol-rich diets with health benefits. However, accurate high-throughput quantitative methods for estimating exposure covering a broad spectrum of (poly)phenols are lacking. We have developed and validated a high-throughput method for the simultaneous quantification of 119 (poly)phenol metabolites in plasma and urine using ultra high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry, with a very fast sample treatment and a single run time of 16 min. This method is highly sensitive, precise, accurate, and shows good linearity for all compounds (R2 > 0.992). This novel method will allow a quantitative assessment of habitual (poly)phenol intake in large epidemiological studies as well as clinical studies investigating the health benefits of dietary (poly)phenols.

Biomonitoring of pesticides, pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs in a freshwater invertebrate to estimate toxic or effect pressure.

Multiple classes of environmental contaminants have been found in aquatic environments, globally. Understanding internalised concentrations in the organism could further improve the risk assessment process. The present study is concerned with the determination of several contaminant classes (107 compounds) in Gammarus pulex collected from 15 sites covering 5 river catchments across Suffolk, UK. Quantitative method performance was acceptable for 67 compounds including pharmaceuticals, pesticides, illicit drugs and drugs of abuse. A total of 56 compounds were detectable and ranged from

Development of a rapid and sensitive method for determination of cysteine/cystine ratio in chemically defined media.

Two rapid, sensitive and quantitative methods for the determination of the cysteine and cystine ratio in complex defined media feedstock using monolithic reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) and RPLC-MS are presented. Cysteine is pre-derivatised with purified 2-chloro-1-methylquinolinium tetrafluoroborate (CMQT) and separated from other derivatisation products on a narrow-bore 50mmx2mm I.D. monolithic C(18) column with UV detection at 355nm. For reversed-phase LC (RPLC) the separation is carried out isocratically using a mobile phase of 50mM trichloroacetic acid (TCA) adjusted to pH 2.5 with lithium hydroxide (LiOH) and acetonitrile (83:14) pumped at 1.5mL/min with an elevated column temperature. For RPLC-MS an ammonium acetate and acetonitrile gradient method was developed with a reduced flow rate of 0.3mL/min. The treatment of the samples consisted of dividing them into two aliquots, the first aliquot is analysed for cysteine and the second aliquot is analysed for cystine after its quantitative reduction to cysteine using tris(2-carboxyethyl)phosphine (TCEP). Both methods are linear, with R(2)>0.999 for 0.25-500microM for cysteine and 0.25-250microM for cystine using the LC-UV method, sensitive, with detection limit of 36nM for cysteine, and precise, with < or =1.1% RSD for both retention time and peak area (n=6). Samples (n=31) of an industry standard and supplied chemically defined media feedstock were analysed, finding cysteine ranging from 1.56 to 2.26microg/mL and cystine from 1062.02 to 1348.13microg/mL.

Determination of urinary thiocyanate and nitrate using fast ion-interaction chromatography.

A simple and rapid chromatographic method for determination of nitrite, nitrate and thiocyanate is reported, and applied to the analysis of non-, medium and heavy smokers' urine samples. Ion-interaction liquid chromatography was carried out on a short 30 mm x 4.6 mm C18 column (3 microm particle size) with a mobile phase of 10 mM tetrabutylammonium phosphate in 20% MeOH. The chromatography was performed at an elevated temperature of 45 degrees C, at a flow-rate of 1 ml/min. Detection was by direct UV absorption at 230 nm. Sample preparation involved centrifugation and dilution, followed by sample clean-up on a C18 solid-phase extraction cartridge. The developed method proved both precise (% RSD <2%) and sensitive (standard detection limits <0.1 mg/l), and yielded total run times of under 10 min when applied to urine analysis of smokers and non-smokers, with thiocyanate eluting in under 5 min.