Simultaneous quantification of four vitamin D metabolites in human serum using high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry for vitamin D profiling

Objectives: For quantification of 25-hydroxyvitamin D(3) (25OH-D(3)), 25-hydroxyvitamin D(2) (25OH-D(2)), 3-epi-25-hydroxyvitamin D(3) (3-epi-25OH-D(3)) and 24R,25-dihydroxyvitamin D(3) (24R,25(OH)(2)-D(3)) in human serum a high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) method was developed and validated.

Design and methods: After protein precipitation further purification is achieved with on-line sample preparation using a reversed phase (RP) C-4 column. Chromatographic separation is realized by a RP-column with core shell material and pentafluorophenyl (PFP) selectivity. Atmospheric pressure chemical ionization in the positive ion mode with multi-reaction monitoring is used for analyte detection.

Results: Baseline separation of the analytes is achieved below 10 min. The method is linear over the range 4.0-265.3 nmol/L for 25OH-D(3), 3.9-183.6 nmol/L for 25OH-D(2), 2.0-133.8 nmol/L for 3-epi-25OH-D(3) and 2.8-129.9 nmol/L for 24R,25(OH)(2)-D(3) (r(2)>0.998). The limit of quantification is 4.0 nmol/L for 25OH-D(3), 3.9 nmol/L for 25OH-D(2), 2.0 nmol/L for 3-epi-25OH-D(3) and 2.8 nmol/L for 24R,25(OH)(2)-D(3). The CVs for the intra-day and inter-day precision are <5% and <4%, respectively. Metabolite levels for a set of 50 human serum samples have been determined and resulted in the detection of considerable amounts of 3-epi-25OH-D(3) and 24R,25(OH)(2)-D(3).

Conclusions: This highly specific HPLC-MS/MS method is suitable for vitamin D profiling. There is a correlation between 25OH-D(3) and 24R,25(OH)(2)-D(3). Serum concentration of 24R,25(OH)(2)-D(3) increases disproportionally with increasing concentration of 25OH-D(3).