A biomarker panel of secondary hypertension is simultaneously quantified by coupling of magnetic solid‐phase extraction and liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry

Rationale Secondary hypertension is often caused by activation of complex multi‐organ endocrine systems, while renin activity indicated by angiotensins (Angs), aldosterone (ALD) and cortisol (COR) in such systems are generally accepted as its diagnostic markers. As antibody‐based methods cannot offer comparable quantification for these biomarkers, a liquid chromatography (LC)–tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS)‐based approach was developed to quantify them simultaneously and accurately. Methods Five different beads for magnetic solid‐phase extraction (MSPE) were evaluated towards their enrichment efficiency for these biomarkers. An LC system with optimized elution gradient and a triple‐quadrupole MS with tuned parameters were coupled to quantitatively monitor the extracted analytes. The method performance was further examined such as linearity, precision, stability, recovery rate and matrix effect. Based on the developed method, the abundance of Ang II, ALD and COR in plasma was measured and the quantification was compared with that derived from commercial ELISA kits. Results As compared with other MSPEs, Angs, ALD and COR were highly enriched by the HLB magnetic beads with satisfactory recoveries. These analytes were simultaneously quantified by LC/MS/MS and all the method parameters for quantification were well matched with the requirements of clinical testing. Comparison of the quantitative results derived from ELISA and LC/MS/MS exhibited that the two methods offered basically comparable values with Pearson r values at 0.896, 0.895 and 0.835, respectively. The stability test for plasma Angs at room temperature indicated that the abundance of Ang II was relatively stable within 3 h, whereas that of Ang I and Ang 1–7 was time‐dependently changed. Conclusions Coupling of HLB beads and LC/MS/MS thus enables simultaneous quantification of a set of biomarkers related to secondary hypertension.