Abstract: A robust and sensitive high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI MS/MS) method was developed with solid phase extraction (SPE) sample preparation. It was optimized for the analysis of various amino acids in rat plasma. Silica-based strong cationic exchange SPE cartridges were used to extract amino acids and minimize the ion-suppression effect. The SPE cleanup protocol was optimized and it was found that the sample loading pH was very critical for the recovery and reproducibility. When the plasma sample was mixed with 0.1 mol/L acetic acid (pH 2.8) and loaded on SPE cartridge, the recoveries and repeatability for most of the amino acids were satisfactory. The method was fully validated. The analytical characteristics such as total recoveries (33.6%~107.7%, except lysine and ornithine), linearities (r2＞0.99 except arginine), intra-day precisions (relative standard deviation (RSD)＜9.0%) and inter-day precisions (RSD＜19.1%) were satisfactory for most of the amino acids. Furthermore, the method was successfully applied to study the ionizing radiation exposure induced changes in amino acid concentration of plasma samples from rats. Experimental results showed that the ionization radiation could lead to metabolism disorder of plasma amino acids, and the degree of disorder was related with the degree of injury by the ionization radiation injury. Some of the amino acids may be potential biomarkers of ionization radiation injury. These results provide experimental basis for screening of new markers of the acute radiation damage.

Key words: amino acids, high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI MS/MS) , ionizing radiation, matrix effect, plasma, solid phase extraction (SPE)