MassChrom® Amino Acid Analysis in Plasma/Serum with Reaction Vials - LC-MS/MS

• Quantitative Amino Acid Analysis (AAA) of 48 analytes
• Fast sample prep without derivatisation
• Short run times
• Excellent separation of isobaric analytes
• Each analyte safeguarded by its own internal standard

MassChrom® Amino Acid Analysis (AAA) is designed for the quantitative determination of 48 amino acids in plasma/serum. It is CE0123-IVD certified and can be used for a range of applications including follow-up testing in newborn screening, therapy monitoring as well as for other amino acid testing purposes, such as aminoacidopathy diagnosis or nutritional research. The kit covers 48 of the clinically most important amino acids that are analysed with a run time of 20 min. Alternatively, the same assay allows the determination of 7 parameters for the  common metabolic diseases PKU and MSUD in 8-9 min – ideal for laboratories with a higher sample throughput. Both modes can be used without changes to the chromatographic setup or sample preparation.

The assay is available in 2 versions either with reaction vials or with 96 deep well plates.

All HPLC assays and most LC-MS/MS assays require derivatisation steps for a good separation of isobaric analytes but to also increase detector response. In contrast, the MassChrom® LC-MS/MS assay eliminates the need for derivatisation.
The benefits:

• Faster sample prep
• Error-prone analytical steps are omitted
• Increased accuracy of results and higher robustness of the method

A number of amino acids are isobars and require a clear chromatographic separation. The sophisticated chromatographic setup of MassChrom® Amino Acid Analysis provides an efficient separation of all isobars such as Ile, Leu and Allo-Ile and works reliably for both, full panel and PKU/MSUD panel.

Each of the 48 amino acids is safeguarded by its own isotopically-labelled internal standard. This includes also saccharopine and hydroxylysine that are custom-made and commercially not available anywhere else. The internal standards take care of a potential small variability in recovery, matrix effects and ionisation effectiveness by providing virtually identical chemical properties of the respective analyte.

Quality controls and the 3PLUS1® Multilevel Calibrator Set are human-matrix based. This is aimed at simulating the composition of patient samples as closely as possible. It reflects the performance of the method with real samples and helps to minimise matrix effects.

The calibrator material from Chromsystems is also linked to a common reference, a standard of higher order, documented in a traceability chain and available on the website. Customers can also download an excel file with the values for quality controls and calibrators, eliminating the need for manual data entry. 

Standard HPLC Amino Acid Analysers use ion exchange chromatography and derivatisation with ninhydrin, requiring approximately 140-150 min for the analysis of all compounds. In contrast,  the LC-MS/MS assay from Chromsystems requires less than 20 minutes to quantify all 48 amino acids in a single run. This translates in a 7-fold increase of throughput in the laboratory. The speed of analysis can be further increased by using the shorter PKU/MSUD panel with a throughput of more than 17 samples within the same time frame of one analytical run with a standard HPLC-based assay. A switch between these 2 modes requires no changes to the chromatographic setup and can therefore be chosen flexibly depending on the sample amount and requirements.

For more information on "Challenging the Status Quo of Amino Acid Analysis in Plasma" and "Amino Acid Analysis - The Chromsystems Way", watch our recorded webinars.