Sensitive determination of the potential biomarker sarcosine for prostate cancer by LC-MS with N,N′-dicyclohexylcarbodiimide derivatization

Sarcosine, a potential biomarker of prostate cancer, has drawn great attention in recent years. However, controversial research keeps arising about its role as a biomarker that might come from the two isomers (-alanine and -alanine) of sarcosine due to their same molecular weight and similar properties, which could interfere with the accurate detection of sarcosine. In this study, a simple and sensitive method was developed for the detection of sarcosine and the two isomers by LC with ion-trap MS through a novel derivatization reagent N,N-dicyclohexylcarbodiimide. N,N-Dicyclohexylcarbodiimide is usually considered as a condensation reagent, however, it was directly used as a derivatization reagent through a rearrangement side reaction in this study. The proposed method not only improved the chromatographic retention behavior of sarcosine and its two isomers, which was a benefit to their separation, but also dramatically enhanced the detection sensitivity of sarcosine, which was more favorable for real sample analysis. The factors affecting the productivity of the derivatization reaction, such as reaction time and amount of derivatization reagent, were systematically optimized. The method shows good linearity (R-2 > 0.99), sensitivity with LODs of sarcosine as low as 1 ng/mL, and repeatability with the RSD < 6.07%. The developed method was applied to the analysis of urine.