Acrylamide-functionalized graphene micro-solid-phase extraction coupled to high-performance liquid chromatography for the online analysis of trace monoamine acidic metabolites in biological samples.

Monoamine acidic metabolites in biological samples are essential biomarkers for the diagnosis of neurological disorders. In this work, acrylamide-functionalized graphene adsorbent was successfully synthesized by a chemical functionalization method and was packed in a homemade polyether ether ketone micro column as a micro-solid-phase extraction unit. This micro-solid-phase extraction unit was directly coupled to high-performance liquid chromatography to form an online system for the separation and analysis of three monoamine acidic metabolites including homovanillic acid, 5-hydroxyindole-3-acetic acid, and 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid in human urine and plasma. The online system showed high stability, permeability, and adsorption capacity toward target metabolites. The saturated extraction amount of this online system was 213.1, 107.0, and 153.4 ng for homovanillic acid, 5-hydroxyindole-3-acetic acid, and 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid, respectively. Excellent detection limits were achieved in the range of 0.08-0.25 μg/L with good linearity and reproducibility. It was interesting that three targets in urine and plasma could be actually quantified to be 0.94-3.93 μg/L in plasma and 7.15-19.38 μg/L in urine. Good recoveries were achieved as 84.8-101.4% for urine and 77.8-95.1% for plasma with the intra- and interday relative standard deviations less than 9.3 and 10.3%, respectively. This method shows great potential for online analysis of trace monoamine acidic metabolites in biological samples.