Determination of six volatile fatty acids in human serum, urine and faeces by low temperature derivatisation combined with HPLC–MS/MS

A stable isotope dilution-liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method based on a low-temperature derivatization strategy with 3-nitrophenylhydrazine (3-NPH) was developed for the determination of six volatile fatty acids (VFAs) in serum, urine, and feces. Ice acetonitrile was used to precipitate proteins and extract the target analytes. The extract was derivatized with 3-NPH methanol solution at 4 °C. BEH C8 (1.7 μm, 2.1 × 100 mm) column was used for chromatographic separation, and acetonitrile–water (both containing 0.01 % formic acid) were used as the mobile phase with a gradient elution of 10 min. Electrospray ionization source (ESI) in negative ion multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode were used for analyte detection. The regression coefficients R² of the calibration curves for the six VFAs were in the range of 0.9963–0.9994, and the LOQs were in the range of 0.02–0.5 μg mL⁻¹, with the recoveries in the range of 85.3–104.3 %, and the intra- and inter-day precision in the range of 1.8–9.1 %. The method is simple, accurate and reliable, and has been applied in the sensitive determination of VFAs in complex biological samples.