Simultaneous determination of sulfur compounds from the sulfur pathway in rat plasma by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry: application to the study of the effect of Shao Fu Zhu Yu decoction

Yue Zhang, An Kang, Haishan Deng, Le Shi, Shulan Su, Li Yu, Tong Xie, Jinjun Shan, Hongmei Wen, Yumei Chi, Shuying Han, Ruilin Su, Yilin Song, Xi Chen, Armaan Basheer Shaikh

Index: 10.1007/s00216-018-1038-2

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Abstract

A sensitive, accurate, and time-saving approach was developed for the simultaneous quantification of eight sulfur compounds in the sulfur pathway, which could reflect the status of an organism, including oxidative stress, signal transduction, enzyme reaction, and so on. In order to overcome the instability of highly reactive sulfhydryl compounds, N-ethylmaleimide derivatization was adopted to effectively protect sulfhydryl-containing samples. Using isotope-labeled glutathione (GSH-13C2, 15N), the validated method was demonstrated to offer satisfactory linearity, accuracy, and precision. Separation was done by UHPLC, using a BEH amide column. Accordingly, 0.1% formic acid acetonitrile was selected as the precipitant. A tandem mass spectrometer was coupled to the chromatographic system and afforded a detection limit of 0.2 ng/mL. Good linearity was maintained over a wide concentration range (r2 > 0.994), and the accuracy was in the range of 86.6–114% for all the studied compounds. The precision, expressed in RSD%, ranged from 1.1% to 9.4% as intraday variability and less than 13% as interday precision for all of the analytes. The approach was applied to study the potential therapeutic mechanism of a well-known traditional Chinese medicine, Shao Fu Zhu Yu decoction. The results suggested that Shao Fu Zhu Yu decoction might protect against oxidative damage by increasing the concentrations of sulfhydryl compounds.