Determination of trimethylamine and related aliphatic amines in human urine by head-space gas chromatography

Analytical Aspects of Amino, Quaternary Ammonium, Nitro, Nitroso and Related Functional Groups

“…Determination of the lower tertiary aliphatic amines in environmental samples, such as river water and bottom sediments, may be performed easily and with good selectivity by distillation of the amines followed by headspace GC-MS; LOD in mg/L for 40 mL samples were 1.25 for Me 3 N, 0.25 for Et 3 N, 0.125 for All 3 N, 0.25 for Pr 3 N and 0.125 for Bu 3 N, with recovery over 70% and standard deviation of the recoveries below 12% n D 5 102 . A method for determination of volatile methylamines in urine, proposed as an aid for detection of the fish odor syndrome, is based on headspace GC analysis 103 . Volatile amines dissolved in water or sediments were determined by preconcentration in a Cavett diffusion flask, by adding strong alkali and cyclopropylamine as internal standard to the water or the solution in the pores of the sediment.…”

Biosniffers (Gas‐Phase Biosensors) as Artificial Olfaction

“…19 In humans, TMA is metabolized exclusively to trimethylamine N -oxide (TMAO) with up to 60 mg day −1 excreted in the urine of healthy people and less than 5% excreted as the parent compound. 20,21 The reaction is widely considered to be catalyzed by flavin-containing monooxygenase (FMO, EC 1.14.13.8) as one of the xenobiotic metabolizing enzymes, 22 which can decompose and detoxicate most chemicals in vivo, even the inhaled VOC. Trimethylaminuria or "fishodor syndrome" is a human disorder characterized by an impaired ability to convert the malodorous TMA to its odorless N -oxide.…”

Chemical and Biological Liberation of Trimethylamine from Foods

“…Pelleted potassium hydroxide (3 g) was added before sealing the vial with an airtight PTFElined septum cap and the vial was left on ice to cool. The vial was then vortex-mixed and heated at 1201C in an aluminium heating block for 24 h after which an aliquot (0.5 mL) of the head-space gas was injected directly onto the analytical column of the gas chromatograph (Zhang et al, 1992).…”

“…The use of authentic trimethylamine, and trimethylamine N-oxide dihydrate, added to distilled water, urine and sample food homogenates, permitted the construction of calibration curves (0.1-150 mg/mL; 0.0001-0.15 g/L), which enabled quantification of the amine. All analyses were undertaken in duplicate, samples with high amine concentrations were diluted before analysis as appropriate (Zhang et al, 1992).…”