An FPSE-HPLC-PDA method for rapid determination of solar UV filters in human whole blood, plasma and urine

Abstract

This paper reports a novel fabric phase sorptive extraction-high performance liquid chromatography-photodiode array detection (FPSE-HPLC-PDA) method for the simultaneous extraction and analysis of six benzophenone derivative UV filters including benzophenone (BZ); 5-benzoyl-4-hydroxy-methoxybenzenesulfonic acid (BP-4); bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)methanone (4-DHB); bis(2,4-dihydroxyphenyl)methanone (BP-2); (2,4-dihydroxybenzophenone) (BP-1) and 2,2'-dihydroxy-4-methoxybenzophenone (DHMB) in human whole blood, plasma and urine samples. Chromatographic separation method was conducted using a Spherisorb ODS 1 (C₁₈) column in isocratic elution mode with a run time <25 min. The FPSE-HPLC-PDA method was validated in the range from 0.1 to 10 μg/mL for all the UV filter compounds. Propyl 4-hydroxybenzoate (also known as propyl paraben) was used as the internal standard (IS). The limit of quantification was found to be 0.1 μg/mL and the weighted-matrix matched standard calibration curves of six UV filters showed a good linearity up to a concentration of 10 μg/mL. This new approach exhibits high potential for direct adaptation as a rapid, robust and green analytical tool for several applications, e.g. in the current sample preparation practices used in many bioanalytical fields including pharmacokinetics (PK), pharmacodynamics (PD), therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM), clinical and forensic toxicology, disease diagnosis and drug discovery. Additionally, in the present work was highlighted that applying innovative extraction and clean up procedures before instrumental analysis by means of a well-known, rugged, cheap, and diffused configurations (e.g. HPLC-PDA), could be possible to validate methods that shows analytical performances comparable to more expensive and complex instrumentations (e.g. LC-MS/MS) that require trained personnel, high maintenance costs and a deep knowledge of analytical problems that could be encountered.

Keywords: Benzophenone-derivative UV filters; Clinical and diagnostic applications; FPSE-HPLC-PDA; Human exposure; Method validation; Plasma and urine; Whole blood.