An improved mass spectrometric method for multicomponent analysis of metabolites in urine, well-suited for clinical biochemistry, is described. The method involves solvent elution of the metabolites from an adsorbent and the concentration of the eluat...
An improved mass spectrometric method for multicomponent analysis of metabolites in urine, well-suited for clinical biochemistry, is described. The method involves solvent elution of the metabolites from an adsorbent and the concentration of the eluate on a microadsorption column. This is administered by a direct inlet probe into the ionizing source of field ionization mass spectrometry (FIMS), which yield a molecular weight profile of the metabolites. The procedure provides rapidly (within one hour) reproducible profiles from a small volume of urine. The optimization of the sampling technique and the reproducibility are discussed.