Abstract
A simple and highly sensitive method for the quantification of dehydroepiandrosterone‐3‐sulfate (DHEAS) in human plasma was developed. DHEAS was directly determined in plasma using column‐switching liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC‐MS). The plasma was filtered with a membrane filter. The filtrate was injected onto a pre‐column without further sample preparation such as extraction or derivatization. The pre‐column was washed with an aqueous solution to remove interference and the analyte was eluted into a reversed‐phase C~18~ analytical column for separation and detection using a column‐switching valve. The calibration range of DHEAS was 0.01–10 µmol/L, and the linearity of the method was 0.999. The limit of detection (LOD) at a signal‐to‐noise (S/N) ratio of 3 was 5 nmol/L. The accuracy and precision (%CV) were less than 10% in within‐day and day‐to‐day variations. To explore the relationship between Alzheimer's disease and the DHEAS level in human plasma, the concentrations of DHEAS in female patients with Alzheimer's disease (n = 20) and in normal female subjects (n = 20) were measured. The level of DHEAS was significantly decreased in the plasma of patients with Alzheimer's disease (p < 0.0002) compared with that in normal subjects. From the results, we concluded that our method is sufficiently sensitivity and reliability for the quantification of DHEAS in clinical samples. Plasma DHEAS concentration could be an important marker to understand the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.