Determination of Polyamines in Human Urine by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Fluorescence Detection

Abstract

A simple high-performance liquid chromatographic method was established for detecting putrescine, cadaverine, spermidine and spermine in human urine. Polyamines were separated on an ion-exchange column with isocratic elution and measured by fluorometry cf the o-phthalaldehyde derivatives using 1, 6-diaminohexane as an internal standard. The recovery rate was 75% for cadaverine and nearly 100% for the other polyamines. The minimum detection limit of each polyamine was less than 0.5μmol/l in urine.
The normal range (95% limit) of polyamines in 24-hr urine was 12.1-29.8μmol/day for putrescine, 1.1-27.0μmol/day for cadaverine, 4.7-16.8μmol/day for spermidine and less than 11.5μmol/day for spermine. The normal range (95% limit) in terms of polyamine/creatinine ratio was 8.3-22.7μmol/g for putrescine, 0.5-18.5μmol/g for cadaverine, 4.2-10.7μmol/g for spermidine and 0.1-7.8μmol/g for spermine.