One-Pot Extraction and Quantification Method for Bile Acids in the Rat Liver by Capillary Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry

We developed a highly sensitive method for quantifying 21 bile acids (BAs) in the rat liver by capillary liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (cLC/MS/MS) with one-pot extraction. High recovery rates were obtained for the one-pot methods with either methanol (MeOH) extraction or MeOH/acetonitrile (ACN) (1:1, v/v) mixture extraction; the results obtained for the MeOH/ACN mixture solution were better than the results obtained for MeOH. Thus, we determined that the one-pot method with MeOH/ACN was the most suitable method for the efficient extraction of BAs in the liver. Targeted BAs were well separated by cLC with gradient elution using ammonium acetate (NH4OAc)-MeOH mobile phases. Method validation proved that the intra-day and inter-day accuracies and precisions were primarily less than +/- 20 and 20% relative standard deviation, respectively. Also, the limit of detection (LOD) and the limit of quantitation (LOQ) were 0.9-10 and 2.3-27 ng/g liver, which proves the high sensitivity of the method. Finally, we quantitated 21 BA concentrations in the liver samples of normal and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) rats, both of which were derived from stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive five (SHRSP5) /Dmcr rat. The hepatic BA profiles were found to be substantially different between the normal and NASH groups; the two groups were clearly separated along the first component axis in the score plots of the principal component analysis. In particular, 10 BAs (beta-muricholic acid (MCA), glyco (G-) cholic acid (CA), G-chenodeoxycholic acid (CDCA), tauro (T-) CA, T-CDCA, T-ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA), T-lithocholic acid (LCA), T-hiodeoxycholic acid (HDCA), T-alpha-MCA, and T-beta-MCA) were significantly different between the two groups using Welch's t-test with the false discovery rate correction method, demonstrating BA disruption in the NASH model rat. In conclusion, this method was able to quantify 21 BAs in the rat liver and will evaluate the hepatic BA pathophysiology of rat disease models.