Fluorous Derivatization Method for Selective Analysis of Curcumin with Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Curcumin has been shown to be pharmacologically active in the prevention and treatment of various human diseases. In this study, we developed a fluorous derivatization method for selective analysis of curcumin with liquid chromatography (LC)tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). Curcumin was derivatized with the thiol-containing fluorous reagent (1H,1H,2H,2Hperfluoro-1-decanethiol) under mild conditions via Michael addition reaction, and the obtained derivative was introduced to a fluorous LC column (Fluofix-II 120E, 150 × 2.0 mm i.d., 5 μm, Wako). The selectively retained fluorous-derivatized curcumin on the column was also enabled highly sensitive detection with negative electrospray ionization MS/MS. Pretreatment of human serum sample was used protein precipitation with CH3CN. The calibration curve obtained by the present method showed good linearity (r2 = 0.9998) in the range of 7.4-442 ng/mL serum, and the limit of detection (S/N = 3) and limit of quantification (S/N = 10) were 1.8 ng/mL serum and 6.1 ng/mL serum, respectively. The present method was successfully applied to the analysis of curcumin in human serum sample.