Anal. Ghem. 1902, 5 4 , 29-32
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Metabolic Profiles of Organic Acids from Human Plasma Davld Issachar,' John
F. Holland, and Charles C.
Sweeley"
Department of Biocheniktry, Michigan State Universiw, East Lensing, Michigan 48824
Metabolic proflles of plasma organlc aiclds from human controls and from patlenls have been studlled. The organlc aclds were extracted by the oleate replsicement ultraflltretlon (ORUF) method, followed by anion exchange. The metabolic patterns were obtalnced by packed and caplllary GC-MS wlth automated data analpls. The data shlow that the metabolic proflles obtalned from the patlents (polyserosltls and dlabetes) polnt to speclflc components whlch maly be characterlstlc for these diseases. Also, It Is shown that automatlc metabollc proflllng of plasma organlc aclds can h 3 done wlth a caplllary GC-MS system.
The metabolic profiling approach to the study of physiological fluids has become a valuable method in biomedicine (1-3). The organic acids fraction of physiological fluids, which contains intermediates and end products of many metabolic pathways, is ideal for metabolic studies. Most published work has dealt with the andytical profiling of urinary components and, to a much lesser extent, other body fluids, such as plasma. Urine is the only human physiological fluid which is normally nearly devoid of pro1;eins. All other such fluids and tissue homogenates contain rimall (amniotic and spinal fluid) or lrrge amounts of protein (Eieminal fluid and plasma). Procedures for the quantitative extraction and analysis of urinary organic acids are not easily adaptable to fluids or extracts which contain high concentrations of protein. In such cases, a difficult problem concerns the separation of the organic acids from the protein while recovering the low-molecular-weight (
