High-Throughput, Nondestructive, and Biosafe Method to Accurately Quantify Water Content in Human Fecal Samples by Benchtop ¹H TD-NMR Analysis for Downstream Bioanalytical and Clinical Uses

Abstract

Water or moisture content in human stool samples is an important parameter for bioanalytical and clinical purposes. For bioanalytical use, accurate quantitation of water content in stool can provide the extent of dilution within the stool sample which can further be used for absolute quantitation of various stool based biomarkers. For clinical use, water or moisture content in stool is an important indicator of gastrointestinal health, and its accurate determination can enable quantitative assessment of the Bristol Stool Form Scale. In general, accurate determination of water content of stool samples is cumbersome, low-throughput process and is prone to harmful stool pathogens biocontamination, sample crosscontamination using techniques such as gravimetry and karl fischer titration. Here, we report a novel user-friendly high-throughput method to quantitatively and accurately measure the overall water content in human fecal samples nondestructively and biocontained in a closed tube using benchtop a 1 H time domain nuclear magnetic resonance analyzer. We used gravimetry and measurement of various bile acid metabolites in stool to verify the accuracy and robustness of the water content measurement using this technique.