Simple and rapid assay for acetaminophen and conjugated metabolites in low-volume serum samples

The use of marker compounds for estimating drug metabolic capacity or pharmacokinetic parameters is common in the biological sciences. Often small laboratory animals are used and thus sample size is a limiting concern. In this report, we describe an assay we developed for measuring the concentration of acetaminophen and its conjugated metabolites in low-volume serum samples. Acetaminophen and metabolites were removed from 10 μl serum samples by a single-step 6% (v/v) perchloric acid deproteination using theophylline as internal standard. Samples were separated in a pH 2.2 sodium sulfate–acetonitrile mobile phase at a flow-rate of 1.5 ml/min on a 15 cm octadecylsilyl column at room temperature. Analytes were detected at a wavelength of 254 nm. The resulting chromatograms showed no interfering peaks from endogenous serum components. The concentration ranges measured were 1.56–200 μg/ml for acetaminophen and acetaminophen sulfate and 3.91–500 μg/ml for acetaminophen glucuronide. The assay was linear in the range of concentrations analyzed. The intra-day and inter-day coefficient of variation ranged from 0.4 to 8.2% and 0.2 to 12.3% for acetaminophen, 0.5 to 12.9% and 0.3 to 16.1% for acetaminophen glucuronide, and 0.4 to 8.1% and 0.2 to 14.3% for acetaminophen sulfate, respectively. Results from the experiments show that acetaminophen and its conjugated metabolites can easily and reproducibly be measured in low-volume serum samples and thus may offer an additional method to measure these compounds when the volume of biological samples may be limited.