Quantification of N-(3-chloro-2-hydroxypropyl)valine in human haemoglobin as a biomarker of epichlorohydrin exposure by gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry with stable-isotope dilution

J Chromatogr B Analyt Technol Biomed Life Sci. 2009 May 1;877(13):1402-15. doi: 10.1016/j.jchromb.2008.11.028. Epub 2008 Nov 24.

Abstract

Epichlorohydrin (ECH) is an important industrial intermediate for the production of polymers and surface coatings. Animal experiments support the classification of ECH as a carcinogen, and a significant contribution to the cancer risk of ECH exposed humans has to be considered. Upon uptake, epichlorohydrin reacts with nucleophilic moieties of N- and S-containing macromolecules to form stable adducts, e.g. with haemoglobin. In this article, we describe a GC-tandem MS method for the quantitative analysis of the primary ECH adduct to the N-terminal amino acid of human haemoglobin, i.e. of N-(3-chloro-2-hydroxypropyl)valine (CHPV), using a globin labelled with d(5)-ECH as the internal standard. Incubation of erythrocyte lysate from human blood with ECH or d(5)-ECH yielded two reaction products, with CHPV being the major component. The GC-tandem MS method is based on a modified Edman degradation procedure with subsequent O-acetylation. The limits of detection and quantification of this method are 10 and 25 pmol/g globin, respectively. Intra- and inter-assay imprecision of the method was about 12 and 15%, respectively, and the mean recovery was 105 and 96% at the levels of 25 and 100 pmol of CHPV per g globin, respectively. The present study reports for the first time on the analysis of CHPV as a haemoglobin adduct of ECH using GC-tandem MS and a stable-isotope labelled internal standard. By this method we quantified haemoglobin adducts of ECH in the blood of subjects potentially exposed to ECH after a freight train accident. Our study points to CHPV in human haemoglobin as a possible biomarker for epichlorohydrin exposure.

Publication types

  • Validation Study

MeSH terms

  • Acetylation
  • Biomarkers / chemistry*
  • Calibration
  • Epichlorohydrin / toxicity*
  • Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry / methods*
  • Hemoglobins / chemistry*
  • Humans
  • Isotopes
  • Reference Standards
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Tandem Mass Spectrometry / methods*

Substances

  • Biomarkers
  • Hemoglobins
  • Isotopes
  • Epichlorohydrin