title: Separation methods applicable to urinary creatine and creatinine.
abstract: Urinary creatinine has been analyzed for many years as an indicator of glomerular filtration rate. More recently, interest in studying the uptake of creatine as a result of creatine supplementation, a practice increasingly common among bodybuilders and athletes, has lead to a need to measure urinary creatine concentrations. Creatine levels are of the same order of magnitude as creatinine levels when subjects have recently ingested creatine, while somewhat elevated urinary creatine concentrations in non-supplementing subjects can be an indication of a degenerative disease of the muscle. Urinary creatine and creatinine can be analyzed by HPLC using a variety of columns. Detection methods include absorption, fluorescence after post-column derivatization, and mass spectrometry, and some methods have been automated. Capillary zone electrophoresis and micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography have also been used to analyze urinary creatine and creatinine. Creatine and creatinine have also been analyzed in serum and tissue using HPLC and CE, and many of these separations could also be applicable to urinary analysis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS, Canada B2G 2W5. tsmithpa@stfx.ca
authors.forename: Truis
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Smith-Palmer
mesh_terms: D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / Q000379:methods; D002855:Chromatography, Thin Layer / Q000379:methods; D003401:Creatine / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000652:urine*; D003404:Creatinine / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000652:urine*; D019075:Electrophoresis, Capillary / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans
chemical_list: D003404:Creatinine; D003401:Creatine