High-Performance Isotope Labeling for Profiling Carboxylic Acid-Containing Metabolites in Biofluids by Mass Spectrometry

We have developed a new isotope labeling method, based on the use of isotope-coded p-dimethylaminophenacyl (DmPA) bromide as a reagent, combined with liquid chromatography−mass spectrometry (LC−MS) for high-performance metabolome analysis with a focus on profiling carboxylic acid-containing metabolites. Derivatization is simple, fast (1 h plus 30 min for quenching the reaction), and applicable to a wide range of carboxylic acids with a high yield and little or no side reaction products. This labeling method is demonstrated to be not only effective in introducing an isotope tag for accurate metabolite quantification but also improving the chromatographic retention of the metabolites in reversed-phase (RP) LC, enhancing ESI efficiency by 2−4 orders of magnitude, and facilitating the identification of metabolite peaks in LC−MS. In triplicate experiments of a 1:1 ratio of 13C-/12C-DmPA labeled human urine, we were able to detect 2671, 2546, and 2820 ion pairs from metabolites containing one or more carboxylic acid groups.