BACKGROUND:Measurement of serum androgens is important in adult, geriatric, pediatric endocrinology, and oncology patients. We developed a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) assay for simultaneous measurement of androstenedione, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), and testosterone in these patients.

High-sensitivity measurement of serum estrogens is important in adult and pediatric endocrinology and oncology. We developed a high-sensitivity liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) assay for simultaneous measurement of estrone (E1) and estradiol (E2). Aliquots of 200 muL of serum were spiked with internal standard, extracted, derivatized with dansyl chloride, and analyzed by LC-MS/MS using 2-dimensional chromatographic separation. Total imprecision for the method was less than 11%; the limit of quantitation was 1 pg/mL. Reference intervals were established with samples from more than 900 healthy postmenopausal women, men, girls, and boys. Concentrations of estrogens in children reached adult levels by Tanner stage 3. In men and postmenopausal women, the median concentrations of total estrogens (E1 + E2) were 39 and 22 pg/mL, and the median E2/E1 ratios were 0.98 and 0.55, respectively. The method requires a small sample volume and has adequate sensitivity and specificity for analyzing estrogens in samples from postmenopausal women, men, and children.

In community-dwelling men older than 60 years, serum testosterone is independently associated with the risk of osteoporotic fracture and its measurement may provide additional clinical information for the assessment of fracture risk in elderly men.

BACKGROUND For many years, basic and clinical researchers have taken advantage of the analytical sensitivity and specificity afforded by mass spectrometry in the measurement of proteins. Clinical laboratories are now beginning to deploy these work flows as well. For assays that use proteolysis to generate peptides for protein quantification and characterization, synthetic stable isotope–labeled internal standard peptides are of central importance. No general recommendations are currently available surrounding the use of peptides in protein mass spectrometric assays. CONTENT The Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium of the National Cancer Institute has collaborated with clinical laboratorians, peptide manufacturers, metrologists, representatives of the pharmaceutical industry, and other professionals to develop a consensus set of recommendations for peptide procurement, characterization, storage, and handling, as well as approaches to the interpretation of the data generated by mass spectrometric protein assays. Additionally, the importance of carefully characterized reference materials—in particular, peptide standards for the improved concordance of amino acid analysis methods across the industry—is highlighted. The alignment of practices around the use of peptides and the transparency of sample preparation protocols should allow for the harmonization of peptide and protein quantification in research and clinical care.

Background:The standard screening test for vitamin B 12 deficiency, measurement of total plasma vitamin B 12 , has limitations of sensitivity and specificity. Plasma vitamin B 12 bound to transcobalamin (holoTC) is the fraction of total vitamin B 12 available for tissue uptake and therefore has been proposed as a potentially useful alternative indicator of vitamin B 12 status. Methods: We compared the diagnostic accuracy of total vitamin B 12 , holoTC, and a combination of both measures to screen for metabolic vitamin B 12 deficiency in an elderly cohort (age >60 years). Plasma methylmalonic acid and homocysteine were used as indicators of vitamin B 12 deficiency. Results: Low total vitamin B 12 (<148 pmol/L) and low holoTC (<35 pmol/L) were observed in 6.5% and 8.0%, and increased methylmalonic acid (>350 nmol/L) and homocysteine (>13 mol/L) were observed in 12.1% and 17.0% of the study participants. In multiple regression models, holoTC explained 5%-6% more of the observed variance in methylmalonic acid and homocysteine than did total vitamin B 12 (P <0.004). ROC curve analysis indicated that total vitamin B 12 and holoTC were essentially equivalent in their ability to discriminate persons with and without vitamin B 12 deficiency. Individuals

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Background Measurement of serum thyroglobulin (Tg) is used to monitor patients after treatment for differentiated thyroid carcinoma (TC). Difficulty in using Tg as a biomarker of the recurrence of TC in many patients stems from the presence of endogenous anti-Tg autoantibodies (Tg-AAb), which can interfere with immunoassays (IA) and cause false-negative results. Methods Tg was enriched from serum samples using rabbit polyclonal anti-Tg antiserum and protein precipitation. Unrelated proteins were partially depleted in the process. Enriched proteins were then denatured, reduced, and digested with trypsin after the addition of a winged internal standard peptide. A Tg-specific tryptic peptide was purified by immunoaffinity extraction and analyzed by 2D-LC-MS/MS. Instrument cycle time was 6.5 min per sample. Results The lower limit of quantification was 0.5 ng/mL (0.76 fmol/mL of dimer). Total imprecision of triplicate measurements in serum samples over five days was less than 10%. Comparison with a commercial IA using serum samples free of Tg-AAb (n=73) showed Deming regression, IA= 1.00*LC-MS/MS-2.35, r=0.982, Sy,x=9.52. In a set of Tg-AAb positive samples tested negative for Tg using IA (n=71), concentrations determined by LC-MS/MS method were at or above 0.5 in 23% of samples (median 1.2, range 0.7–11 ng/mL). Conclusions The method has acceptable performance characteristics for use in clinical diagnostic applications. The most substantial disagreement between the methods was observed in Tg-AAb positive samples with concentration below 2 ng/mL (determined with LC-MS/MS). The affinity assisted enrichment strategy used for Tg in this method is applicable to other biomarkers that have endogenous autoantibodies.