TY - JOUR A1 - Tukhmetova, Dariya A1 - Langhammer, Nicole A1 - Vogl, Jochen A1 - Meermann, Björn T1 - Online Isotope Analysis of Sulfur in Proteins via Capillary Electrophoresis Coupled With Multicollector ICP‐MS (CE/MC‐ICP‐MS): A Proof of Concept Study N2 - Isotope ratio analysis of sulfur in biological samples using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) has gained significant interest for applications in quantitative proteomics. Advancements like coupling separation techniques with multicollector ICP-MS (MC-ICP-MS) enhance the throughput of species-specific sulfur isotope ratio measurements, fostering new avenues for studying sulfur metabolism in complex biological matrices. This proof-of-concept study investigates the feasibility of online CE/MC-ICP-MS for directly analyzing sulfur isotope ratios in proteins (albumin). Leveraging our previous work on the applicability of CE/ICP-MS for quantifying sulfur-containing biological molecules, we explore its potential for sulfur isotope analysis. Our results demonstrate that direct analysis of sulfur isotopes in albumin protein using online capillary electrophoresis MC-ICP-MS (CE/MC-ICP-MS) eliminates the need for laborious pretreatment steps, while yielding isotope ratios comparable to the reference values. Although initial precision can be improved through further system optimization and protein injection techniques, this approach paves the way for future analysis of mixtures of various biological compounds in, for example, clinical diagnosis studies. KW - Isotope analysis KW - Sulfur KW - CE/MC-ICP-MS PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-612439 DO - https://doi.org/10.1002/elps.202400128 SN - 0173-0835 SP - 1 EP - 6 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Weinheim AN - OPUS4-61243 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tukhmetova, Dariya A1 - Lisec, Jan A1 - Vogl, Jochen A1 - Meermann, Björn T1 - Development of an Online Isotope Dilution CE/ICP–MS Method for the Quantification of Sulfur in Biological Compounds N2 - We report an analytical methodology for the quantification of sulfur in biological molecules via a speciesunspecific postcolumn isotope dilution (online ID) approach using capillary electrophoresis (CE) coupled online with inductively coupled plasma−mass spectrometry (online ID CE/ICP−MS). The method was optimized using a mixture of standard compounds including sulfate, methionine, cysteine, cystine, and albumin, yielding compound recoveries between 98 and 105%. The quantity of sulfur is further converted to the quantity of the compounds owing to the prior knowledge of the sulfur content in the molecules. The limit of detection and limit of quantification of sulfur in the compounds were 1.3−2.6 and 4.1−8.4 mg L−1, respectively, with a correlation coefficient of 0.99 within the concentration range of sulfur of 5−100 mg L−1. The capability of the method was extended to quantify albumin in its native matrix (i.e., in serum) using experimentally prepared serum spiked with a pure albumin standard for validation. The relative expanded uncertainty of the method for the quantification of albumin was 6.7% (k = 2). Finally, we tested the applicability of the method on real samples by the analysis of albumin in bovine and human sera. For automated data assessment, a software application (IsoCor) which was developed by us in a previous work was developed further for handling of online ID data. The method has several improvements compared to previously published setups: (i) reduced adsorption of proteins onto the capillary wall owing to a special capillary-coating procedure, (ii) baseline separation of the compounds in less than 30 min via CE, (iii) quantification of several sulfur species within one run by means of the online setup, (iv) SI traceability of the quantification results through online ID, and (v) facilitated data processing of the transient signals using the IsoCor application. Our method can be used as an accurate approach for quantification of proteins and other biological molecules via sulfur analysis in complex matrices for various fields, such as environmental, biological, and pharmaceutical studies as well as clinical diagnosis. Sulfur is an essential element in living organisms, where it plays important roles in various biological processes, such as protein synthesis, enzyme activity, and antioxidant defense. However, the biological effects of different sulfur species can vary widely, and imbalances in sulfur speciation have been observed in a range of diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and diabetes.1−3 The accurate quantification of sulfur and its species in biological samples requires sensitive and selective analytical techniques. In recent years, separation techniques coupled online with inductively coupled plasma−mass spectrometry (ICP−MS) have emerged as powerful online analytical tools complementary to molecular spectrometric methods for speciation analysis of biological compounds. External calibration4−9 and isotope dilution (ID)10−15 are common calibration approaches applied for online quantification of sulfur species in complex samples. The ID analysis is advantageous over. KW - Analytical Chemistry KW - CE/MC-ICP-MS KW - species-specific isotope information PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-594736 DO - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.3c03553 SN - 0003-2700 SP - 1 EP - 8 PB - American Chemical Society (ACS) AN - OPUS4-59473 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -