University Medical Center Utrecht/Wilhelmina Children's Hospital, Department of Metabolic and Endocrine Diseases, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
J Chromatogr A. 2011 Oct 7;1218(40):7130-6. doi: 10.1016/j.chroma.2011.07.087. Epub 2011 Aug 3.
D-Amino acids are increasingly being recognized as important signaling molecules in mammals, including humans. D-Serine and D-aspartate are believed to act as signaling molecules in the central nervous system. Interestingly, several other D-amino acids also occur in human plasma, but very little is currently known regarding their function and origin. Abnormal levels of D-amino acids have been implicated in the pathogenesis of different diseases, including schizophrenia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), indicating that D-amino acid levels hold potential as diagnostic markers. Research into the biological functions of D-amino acids is hindered, however, by the lack of sufficiently sensitive, high-throughput analytical methods. In particular, the interference of large amounts of L-amino acids in biological samples and the low concentrations of D-amino acids are challenging. In this paper, we compared 7 different chiral derivatization agents for the analysis of D-amino acids and show that the chiral reagent (S)-NIFE offers outstanding performance in terms of sensitivity and enantioselectivity. An UPLC-MS/MS based method for the quantification of D-amino acids human biological fluids was then developed using (S)-NIFE. Baseline separation (R(s)>2.45) was achieved for the isomers of all 19 chiral proteinogenic amino acids. The limit of detection was <1 nM for all amino acids except d-alanine (1.98 nM), d-methionine (1.18 nM) and d-asparagine (5.15 nM). For measurements in human plasma, cerebrospinal fluid and urine, the accuracy ranged between 85% and 107%. The intra-assay and inter-assay were both <16% RSD for these three different matrices. Importantly, the method does not suffer from spontaneous racemization during sample preparation and derivatization. Using the described method, D-amino acid levels in human cerebrospinal fluid, plasma and urine were measured.
D-氨基酸在哺乳动物(包括人类)中越来越被认为是重要的信号分子。D-丝氨酸和 D-天冬氨酸被认为是中枢神经系统中的信号分子。有趣的是,其他几种 D-氨基酸也存在于人类血浆中,但目前对于它们的功能和来源知之甚少。D-氨基酸水平异常与多种疾病的发病机制有关,包括精神分裂症和肌萎缩侧索硬化症(ALS),这表明 D-氨基酸水平有可能作为诊断标志物。然而,由于缺乏足够敏感、高通量的分析方法,D-氨基酸的生物学功能研究受到阻碍。特别是,生物样本中大量 L-氨基酸的干扰和 D-氨基酸的低浓度都是具有挑战性的。在本文中,我们比较了 7 种不同的手性衍生化试剂用于 D-氨基酸分析,并表明手性试剂(S)-NIFE 在灵敏度和对映选择性方面表现出色。然后使用(S)-NIFE 开发了一种基于 UPLC-MS/MS 的用于定量分析人生物体液中 D-氨基酸的方法。所有 19 种手性蛋白质氨基酸的异构体均实现了基线分离(R(s)>2.45)。除 D-丙氨酸(1.98 nM)、D-蛋氨酸(1.18 nM)和 D-天冬酰胺(5.15 nM)外,所有氨基酸的检测限均<1 nM。对于人血浆、脑脊液和尿液中的测量,准确度在 85%至 107%之间。对于这三种不同基质,内和日间的精密度均<16%RSD。重要的是,该方法在样品制备和衍生化过程中不会发生自发消旋化。使用所描述的方法,测量了人脑脊液、血浆和尿液中的 D-氨基酸水平。