Quantitative determination of cyclic polylactic acid oligomers in serum by direct injection liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

J Chromatogr B Analyt Technol Biomed Life Sci. 2008 Jul 15;870(2):247-50. doi: 10.1016/j.jchromb.2008.06.035. Epub 2008 Jun 27.

Abstract

Polylactic acid (PLA) is a biodegradable polymer, currently used in pharmaceutical and surgical devices. There is a concern that cyclic polylactic acid (CPLA), which is a by-product of PLA synthesis, may be introduced into the human body as an undesirable contaminant. We carried out a quantitation investigation of the CPLA heptamer (CPLA-7) by liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS). We found that CPLA-7 binds strongly with serum proteins and that only 62% of CPLA-7 was recovered after routine deproteination; therefore, we directly injected serum into the LC-MS/MS system after passage through a bovine serum albumin (BSA)-coated chromatographic column and found the recovery of CPLA-7 was improved to 84%, and that the detection (S/N=3) and quantitation limit (S/N=10 and below 15% relative standard deviation) were 1.5 and 2.5 ng/mL, respectively. We conclude that direct injection LC-MS/MS, using a BSA column, is a simple and effective quantitative analysis method for CPLA in serum.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / methods*
  • Humans
  • Lactic Acid / blood*
  • Lactic Acid / chemistry
  • Polyesters
  • Polymers / chemistry
  • Tandem Mass Spectrometry / methods*

Substances

  • Polyesters
  • Polymers
  • Lactic Acid
  • poly(lactide)