Granulocytes were isolated from heparinized blood by isopycnic centrifugation. After lysis and deproteinization, the concentration of di-butylated cystine was measured by HPLC-ESI-MS/MS, using deuterium labelled, d6-cystine, as internal standard.
The assay was linear to at least 50 ¦Ìmol/L with a good precision. Within-day and between-day coefficients of variation were about 6 % . The recovery was higher than 98 % . Control values were clearly distinguishable from pathological levels, even if patients were under treatment. A good correlation was observed with cystine binding protein (CBP) assay, one of the most sensitive and specific methods.
This method results in good analytical performance, and is useful for diagnosis and follow up of Cystinosis. This method offers several advantages over the CBP assay: it is less expensive, easier, quicker and it does not require radioactivity. In addition, when comparing with the HPLC-ESI-MS/MS method previously described by Chabli et al. 2006, our assay exhibits more sensitivity and is faster.