Analysing and quantifying chronic stress ‐associated endogenous steroids in hair samples

This study presents the development and validation of a method for the analysis of steroids in hair samples. The method was fully validated for seven steroids, and one steroid (estradiol) can be semi-quantitative analysed. Ten representative samples from an explorative study on adolescents are included in the present study. AbstractIn previous studies, various steroids have been associated with stress and have therefore been quantified to investigate stress-related questions. Since the main stress-related steroid cortisol follows a circadian rhythm, often hair is analysed to quantify this steroid. Further, hair analysis gives the unique possibility of long-time monitoring by analysing a certain segment of hair, since hair grows on average 1  cm per month. Hair is a difficult matrix due to the complex sample preparation with many steps including washing and grinding, followed by various extraction steps. Additionally, steroids are endogenous and are therefore present in the hair matrix. Hence, no analyte free matrix is available, whic h is needed for the quantification via external calibrators. To overcome this problem, the so-called surrogate methods can be used, for which a13C3 labelled or deuterated reference compound of the steroid of interest is used for quantification. In the present study, a surrogate method was developed and fully validated for the quantitative analysis of seven steroids in human hair. Validation experiments showed that the method is further suitable...
Source: Drug Testing and Analysis - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Tags: RESEARCH ARTICLE Source Type: research