Capillary electrophoresis coupled to mass spectrometry to establish polypeptide patterns in dialysis fluids

Abstract

Combination of capillary electrophoresis with mass spectrometry (CE–MS) allows generation of polypeptide patterns of body fluids. In a single CE–MS (45 min) run more than 600 polypeptides were analyzed in hemodialysis fluids obtained with different membranes (high-flux/low-flux). Larger polypeptides ( M r>10 000) were almost exclusively present in high-flux dialysates only, while in low-flux dialysates additional small polypeptides were detected. Comparison to the normal urine pattern yielded a surprisingly low consensus: a number of polypeptides present in urine were missing. We established a fast and sensitive technique, easily applicable to the monitoring of different modalities of dialyzers.