Determination of Neutral Monosaccharides as Per-O-methylated Derivatives Directly from a Drop of Whole Blood by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry.

A new analytical procedure was developed for the simultaneous quantification of neutral monosaccharides from a drop of whole blood using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis (GC-MS) of their per-O-methylated derivatives. The per-O-methylation reaction with methyl iodide and solid sodium hydroxide in methyl sulfoxide was used for the first time for analysis of blood monosaccharides. A blood drop volume of 0.6 μL was used without special purification. The elimination of the undesirable components was carried out during methylation in the presence of a strong base and by liquid extraction of the per-O-methylated monosaccharides. The neutral monosaccharides with an anomeric center gave four per-O-methylated isomers, which were well-separated using a capillary column. Identification was done by electron impact mass spectrometry fragmentation, retention times, and library searching. The limits of detection were determined for standards and varied from 2.0 to 2.3 ng mL(-1). Recoveries for human blood samples varied from 99.22% to 99.65%. The RSD values ranged from 1.92 to 2.37. The method is fast, sensitive, reproducible, and an alternative to current methods for quantitative analysis of blood monosaccharides.