Simultaneous monitoring of seven phenolic metabolites of endocrine disrupting compounds (EDC) in human urine using gas chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry

A gas chromatographic-tandem mass spectrometric (GC-MS/MS) method for the simultaneous determination of the three well-known endocrine disruptors, bisphenol A, daidzein and genistein, as well as of four human pesticide metabolites which are supposed to have proper endocrine activity or which are metabolites of endocrine-disrupting compounds, viz., 1- and 2-naphthol, 2-isopropoxyphenol and 3,5,6-trichloropyridinol, has been developed and validated. The method involves enzymatic cleavage of the conjugates using beta-glucuronidase/arylsulfatase followed by solid-phase extraction and derivatisation with N-tert-butyldimethylsilyl-N-methyltrifluoroacetamide. Isotopically labelled internal standards were used for all analytes, to achieve best analytical error correction. The method proved to be both sensitive and reliable in human urine with detection limits ranging from 0.1 to 0.6 mu g/L for all analytes. Precision and repeatability was determined to range from 1 to 15 %. Compared with other published analytical procedures, the present method enables the simultaneous determination of a couple of phenolic agents with competitive or improved analytical reliability. Thus, the present method is suitable for a combined monitoring of the exposure to prominent xenobiotics with effects on the human endocrine system (bisphenol A, carbaryl, chlorpyrifos, chlorpyrifos-methyl, naphthalene, propoxur, triclopyr) and phytoestrogens (daidzein, genistein) in population studies.