Quantitation of free and total bisphenol A in human urine using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

Bisphenol A (BPA) is employed in the synthesis of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins and is widely used in consumer products including as a coating for the inside of almost all food and beverage containers and thermal-imaging paper. Bisphenol A is considered to have important health implications because it possesses weak estrogenic activity and can leach from storage containers resulting in its consumption by both humans and animals. It is metabolized in the body and excreted into urine as a glucuronide derivative. In this report, we present an accurate, selective, sensitive, and reproducible high-performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC/MS/MS) method for the quantitation of BPA in human urine, which is not prone to exogenous contamination. BPA-glucuronide is hydrolyzed enzymatically, extracted with toluene, derivatized with dansyl chloride, and the BPA-(dansyl)(2) derivative is analyzed using reversed-phase HPLC/MS/MS. Calibration was linear to 50 ng/mL with a limit of quantitation of 50 pg/mL and a limit of detection of 5 pg/mL.