Determination of Urinary Excretion of 17 Phenolic Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (OH-Pahs) by LC-MS/MS

Abstract

Background: Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are products of the incomplete combustion of organic compounds, and exposed to human by smoking, diet and environmental pollution. Several PAHs are classified as carcinogens. Because of their global occurrence in different food and environmental media, they are of toxicological and public concern. This study was performed to evaluate analytical method of PAHs in human urine with enzyme hydrolysis and solid-phase extraction coupled with LC-(ESI)-MS/MS technique. Methods: We employed LC-(ESI)-MS/MS(API 4000, AppliedBioscience) techniques with appropriate pretreatment for this biological monitoring and method validation of PAHs analysis in urine samples. Samples were prepared by enzyme hydrolysis (ß-glucuronidase/aryl sulfatase, 37°C, overnight) and solid-phase extraction with Sep-pak cartridge. Analytical method of PAHs were validated with blank urine by liquid chromatography (Shiseido, SI-2) tandem mass spectrometry. Results: The linearity obtained was very satisfying for all 17 targeted PAHs compounds, with a coefficient of determination (R2) higher than 0.99. The limit of detections ranged from 0.01 to 0.08 ng/mL with human urine samples. The accuracies of method ranged between 80% and 120% and precision was lower than 20% RSD for high and low concentrations in PAHs spiked urine samples. Conclusions: Analytical method was validated for low nanogram level of PAHs in human urine samples by HPLC system with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry.