title: Determination of thiol metabolites in human urine by stable isotope labeling in combination with pseudo-targeted mass spectrometry analysis.
abstract: Precursor ion scan and multiple reaction monitoring scan (MRM) are two typical scan modes in mass spectrometry analysis. Here, we developed a strategy by combining stable isotope labeling (IL) with liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) under double precursor ion scan (DPI) and MRM for analysis of thiols in 5 types of human cancer urine. Firstly, the IL-LC-DPI-MS method was applied for non-targeted profiling of thiols from cancer samples. Compared to traditional full scan mode, the DPI method significantly improved identification selectivity and accuracy. 103 thiol candidates were discovered in all cancers and 6 thiols were identified by their standards. It is worth noting that pantetheine, for the first time, was identified in human urine. Secondly, the IL-LC-MRM-MS method was developed for relative quantification of thiols in cancers compared to healthy controls. All the MRM transitions of light and heavy labeled thiols were acquired from urines by using DPI method. Compared to DPI method, the sensitivity of MRM improved by 2.1-11.3 folds. In addition, the concentration of homocysteine, γ-glutamylcysteine and pantetheine enhanced more than two folds in cancer patients compared to healthy controls. Taken together, the method demonstrated to be a promising strategy for identification and comprehensive quantification of thiols in human urines.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Biology and Medicine (Ministry of Education), Department of Chemistry, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Biology and Medicine (Ministry of Education), Department of Chemistry, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, P.R. China.|Department of Pathology, Hubei Cancer Hospital, Wuhan, Hubei 430079, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Chu-Bo
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Qi
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Biology and Medicine (Ministry of Education), Department of Chemistry, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Quan-Fei
authors.initials: QF
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Biology and Medicine (Ministry of Education), Department of Chemistry, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Bi-Feng
authors.initials: BF
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Biology and Medicine (Ministry of Education), Department of Chemistry, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Yu-Qi
authors.initials: YQ
authors.lastname: Feng
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000652:urine*; D013438:Sulfhydryl Compounds / Q000652:urine*
chemical_list: D013438:Sulfhydryl Compounds