Simultaneous quantification of cardiovascular disease related metabolic risk factors using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry in human serum

• A rapid and precise LC–MS/MS method for simultaneous quantification of CVD related metabolic risk factors was developed.
• The 16 metabolites were effectively separated within 5.5 min.
• 123 healthy subjects were analyzed.
• Significant associations between the metabolites and classic CVD risk factors were observed.
• This method is simple and precise and is suitable for CVD risk assessment.

Recent observations from metabonomic studies have consistently found that branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), aromatic amino acids (AAAs), glutamine (Gln), glutamic acid (Glu), Gln/Glu ratio, carnitine, and several species of acylcarnitines and lysophosphatidylcholines (LPCs) are possible risk factors for metabolic diseases such as diabetes mellitus (DM) and cardiovascular diseases (CVD). We described here a simple and reliable method for simultaneous quantification of these metabolic risk factors by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS). Serum samples were extracted with isopropanol, and the extracted metabolites were separated by hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) and detected with electrospary ionization (ESI) inpositive ion mode with multiple reaction monitor (MRM) mode. All the metabolites were effectively separated within 5.5 min. Analytical recoveries were in the range of 92.8–106.9%, with an average of 100.6%. The intra- run and total imprecisions for the measurement of these metabolites were 1.2–3.8% and 1.5–7.4%, respectively. Serum concentrations of the metabolites were analyzed in 123 apparently healthy volunteers. Significant associations between the metabolites and traditional CVD risk factors were observed. The newly developed LC–MS/MS method was simple, precise, and accurate and can be used as an efficient tool in CVD research and studies.