Glyoxal and methylglyoxal as urinary markers of diabetes. Determination using a dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction procedure combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

- Glyoxal and methylglyoxal are used as urinary markers of diabetes.
- Urine is treated with a mixture of acetonitrile and water in a highly saline medium.
- Determination is performed using microextraction combined with GC-MS.
- Levels of methylglyoxal are significantly higher in the urine of diabetic patients.

Glyoxal (GO) and methylglyoxal (MGO) are α-oxoaldehydes that can be used as urinary diabetes markers. In this study, their levels were measured using a sample preparation procedure based on salting-out assisted liquid-liquid extraction (SALLE) and dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME) combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The effect of the derivatization reaction with 2,3-diaminonaphthalene, the addition of acetonitrile and sodium chloride to urine, and the DLLME step using the acetonitrile extract as dispersant solvent and carbon tetrachloride as extractant solvent were carefully optimized. Quantification was performed by the internal standard method, using 5-bromo-2-chloroanisole. The intraday and interday precisions were lower than 6%. Limits of detection were 0.12 and 0.06 ng mL−1, and enrichment factors 140 and 130 for GO and MGO, respectively. The concentrations of these α-oxoaldehydes in urine were between 0.9 and 35.8 ng g−1 levels (creatinine adjusted). A statistical comparison of the analyte contents of urine samples from non-diabetic and diabetic patients pointed to significant differences (P = 0.046, 24 subjects investigated), particularly regarding MGO, which was higher in diabetic patients. The novelty of this study compared with previous procedures lies in the treatment of the urine sample by SALLE based on the addition of acetonitrile and sodium chloride to the urine. The DLLME procedure is performed with a sedimented drop of the extractant solvent, without a surfactant reagent, and using acetonitrile as dispersant solvent. Separation of the analytes was performed using GC-MS detection, being the analytes unequivocal identified. The proposed procedure is the first microextraction method applied to the analysis of urine samples from diabetic and non-diabetic patients that allows a clear differentiation between both groups using a simple analysis.