Determination of methylglyoxal in human blood plasma using fluorescence high performance liquid chromatography after derivatization with 1,2-diamino-4,5-methylenedioxybenzene

• An extremely simple and sensitive HPLC method was proposed to measure methylglyoxal.
• The optimized method was applied to measure MG in human blood plasma.
• The presented method offers a convenient way to monitor MG levels clinically in biological fluids.

Methylglyoxal (MG) is a highly reactive dicarbonyl compound that promotes the non-enzymatic glycation of proteins to yield irreversible advanced glycated end products, leading to the cross-linking or degradation of proteins. The physiological relevance of MG currently remains unclear because its metabolic behavior has not yet been elucidated in detail. Although several labeling methods that require a HPLC system have been developed and used to measure MG, a standard method to analyze the content of MG in biological samples has not been established. We herein present a practical method based on HPLC with fluorescence detection to measure low MG levels. MG concentrations were also measured in human blood plasma using the present method in order to demonstrate its utility.A calibration curve was produced using freshly purified MG at concentrations ranging between 0.05 and 1.0 μM. The intra-day and inter-day relative standard diviations of the method were 2.55% and 4.03%, respectively. The limit of detection and limit of quantification were 60 fmol and 200 fmol, respectively for MG with a 10-μl injection volume of the derivatized sample solution. When the optimized method was applied to human plasma, the resulting concentrations of MG in the plasma of healthy subjects (n = 23) ranged between 0.024 and 0.258 μM (mean ± SD = 0.098 ± 0.066). Thus, the method developed herein is simple, sensitive, and easy to operate for the measurement of MG in biological samples.