Simultaneous determination of 5-hydroxyindoles and catechols from urine using polymer monolith microextraction coupled to high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection

To make analytes amenable for fluorescence (FL) detection, polymer monolith microextraction (PMME) coupled to high-performance liquid chromatography with FL detection was developed for the simultaneous determination of catechols and 5-hydroxyindoleamines (5-HIAs) from urine samples. In this method, a two-step pre-column derivatization method was employed to derivatize the analytes and a poly(methacrylic acid-co-ethylene glycol dimethacrylate) monolithic capillary column was used as the extraction medium for PMME. The conditions for the derivatization and subsequent extraction of 5-HIAs and catechols derivatives were optimized. Using our optimum conditions, the detection limit of the target analytes were 0.11–21 nM. Reproducibility of the method was obtained with intra-day and inter-day relative standard deviations less than 12% and a recovery of higher than 82%. In this study, we show how our proposed method can be used as a rapid sensitive technique for the determination of catechols and 5-HIAs from urine samples.