A rapid screening approach to metabonomics using UPLC and oa-TOF mass spectrometry: application to age, gender and diurnal variation in normal/Zucker obese rats and black, white and nude mice.

The use of Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography (UPLC), with a rapid 1.5 minute reversed-phase gradient separation on a 1.7 microm reversed-phase packing material to provide rapid "high throughput" support for metabonomic screening is demonstrated. The peak capacity and the number of marker ions detected using these fast UPLC separations and oa-TOF MS was found to be similar to that generated by conventional HPLC-MS methods with a 10 minute separation. The UPLC-MS methodology was applied to the analysis of urine samples from rodents, including normal and Zucker obese rats and three strains of mice (of both sexes), and was found to provide rapid discrimination between age, strain, gender and diurnal variation.