PubMed · 11385451
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N Mejlhede, P E Nielsen, M Ibba. 2001. Adding new meanings to the genetic code.. https://doi.org/10.1038/89267
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Amino acid (AA) profiles from body fluids such as blood and urine are clinical indicators for diagnosing metabolic and hepatic diseases. Current quantitative methods, such as liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) with isotopically labelled internal standards (ISs), are costly and technically demanding. This study proposes a cost-efficient alternative using structural isomers as ISs in a direct liquid infusion (DLI) tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) approach. The method leverages chimeric spectra and fragment intensity ratios to quantify AAs, demonstrating high linearity and precision even with a 3D ion trap mass analyser. This approach offers a viable strategy for AA quantification in preventive medicine, particularly for screening metabolic diseases such as phenylketonuria, diabetes, and liver dysfunction.
The purpose of this study was to develop a simple and accurate analytical method to determine amino acids in urine samples. The developed method involves the employment of an extract derivatization technique together with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Urine samples (300 microl) and an internal standard (10 microl) were placed in a screw tube. Ethylchloroformate (50 microl), methanol-pyridine (500 microl, 4:1, v/v) and chloroform (1 ml) were added to the tube. The organic layer (1 microl) was injected to a GC-MS system. In this proposed method, the amino acids in urine were derivatized during an extraction, and the analytes were then injected to GC-MS without an evaporation of the organic solvent extracted. Sample preparation was only required for ca. 5 min. The 15 amino acids (alanine, aspartic acid, cysteine, glutamic acid, glycine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, proline, tyrosine, tryptophan, valine) quantitatively determined in this proposed method. However, threonine, serine, asparagine, glutamine, arginine were not derivatized using any tested derivatizing reagent. The calibration curves showed linearity in the range of 1.0-300 microg/ml for each amino acid in urine. The correlation coefficients of the calibration curves of the tested amino acids were from 0.966 to 0.998. The limit of detection in urine was 0.5 microg/ml except for aspartic acid. This proposed method demonstrated substantial accuracy for detection of normal levels. This proposed method was limited for the determination of 15 amino acids in urine. However, the sample preparation was simple and rapid, and this method is suitable for a routine analysis of amino acids in urine.
The geometries of the 20 genetically encoded amino acids were optimized at the restricted Hartree-Fock level of theory using the 6-31+G* basis set. A detailed comparison showed the calculated geometries to be in excellent agreement with those determined by X-ray crystallography. The study demonstrated that the geometric parameters for the main-chain group and for the bonds and common functional groups of the side-chains exhibit a high degree of transferability among the members of this set of molecules. This geometric transferability is a necessary prerequisite for the corresponding transferability of their electron density distributions and hence of their bond and atomic properties. The transferability of the electron distributions will be demonstrated and exploited in the following paper of this series, which uses the topology of the electron density to define an atom within the quantum theory of atoms in molecules. Particular features of the geometries of the amino acids are discussed. It has been shown, for example, how the apparent anomaly of the Calpha-N bond length in a peptide being shorter than in the charged species Calpha-NH3+ is resolved when the charge separation is gauged by the differences in the charges of the Calpha and N atoms as opposed to the use of formal charges. A compilation of literature sources on experimental geometries covering each member of the 20 amino acids is presented. A set of rules for labeling the atoms and bonds, complementing the generally accepted IUPAC-IUB rules, is proposed to uniquely identify every atom and bond in the amino acids.