Evaluation of the repeatability of ultra-performance liquid chromatography–TOF-MS for global metabolic profiling of human urine samples

The application of reversed-phase ultra-performance liquid chromatography, based on the use of sub 2 μm particles, combined with time-of-flight mass spectrometry has been investigated for the production of global metabolite profiles from human urine. The stability and repeatability of the methodology, which employed gradient elution, was determined by the repeat analysis of a pooled quality control (QC) sample. As seen in previous studies conducted with conventional LC–MS an element of system conditioning was required to obtain reproducible data, as the initial injections were unrepresentative. However, once the system had equilibrated excellent repeatability in terms of retention time, signal intensity and mass accuracy was seen providing confidence that for this matrix, the within-day repeatability of UPLC–TOF-MS was sufficient to assure data quality in global metabolic profiling applications.