Quantitation of L-Arginine and Asymmetric Dimethylarginine in Human Plasma by LC-Selective Ion Mode-MS for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Study

The article reports a simple, sensitive and fast LC/MS method for the analysis of L-arginine (L-Arg), asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and symmetric dimethylarginine (SDMA) in human plasma. The homoarginine was used as the internal standard (IS). The chromatographic separation was achieved on C-18 (150 mm x 2.1 mm, 5 mu m) column with a mobile phase consisting of ammonium acetate (0.25 mmol/1) and methanol (93 : 7, v/v), at a flow rate of 0.2 ml/min. L-Arg, ADMA and SDMA were well separated by LC/MS with selective ion mode (SIM). The method was successfully applied to type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) study. Twenty-one healthy controls and twenty-two T2DM patients before and after treatment two years were investigated. The results indicated that the level of ADMA in T2DM was significantly higher than that in healthy controls. Furthermore, ADMA has important association with the development of cardiovascular diseases.