Plasma Preparation Method for Metabolomic Analysis Based on Rapid Resolution Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

This study was undertaken to compare different methods for plasma preparation in metabolomic analysis. Plasma proteins were either precipitated with four different organic solvents or subjected to solid-phase extraction (SPE) on C18-boned phase, with consideration to the number of extracted standard compounds. The eluent was analyzed by RRLC-MS. The results indicated that acetonitrile could be used to effectively precipitate plasma proteins with the best extracting effect. Then, the optimal conditions for acetonitrile preparation were further investigated. A 3-fold volume of cold acetonitrile coupled with slow precipitation was employed. The results, according to the reproducibility, precision and freeze thawing stability of the sample, showed that the method is satisfactory and could be applied in metabolomic analysis of plasma preparation. Furthermore, the reproducibility of the method using principal component analysis (PCA) was sufficient to ensure data quality in metabolomic applications by carefully monitoring the quality control samples randomly inserted among the real sample queue, and the method would be applied in metabolomic studies.