LC–MS/MS quantitative analysis of phylloquinone, menaquinone-4 and menaquinone-7 in the human serum of a healthy population

A novel application of the liquid chromatography method combined with the triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry method was developed for the quantification of vitamin K 1 and two forms of vitamin K 2 (menaquinone-4, menaquinone-7) in human serum. Total chromatography time for each run was 9 min. Time required for the sample pretreatment procedures was approximately 4 h. The coefficients of variation (CVs) of intra-assay were 10.4%, 3.2 % and 2.3% for vitamin K 1 in three levels of quality control samples; were 14.3%, 3.2% and 6.7% for menaquinone-4; and were 11.1%, 6.0% and 7.0% for menaquinone-7. The inter-assay CVs were 12.8%, 11.3% and 7.4% for vitamin K 1 ; were 15.2%, 9.2% and 8.7% for menaquinone-4; and were 13.2%,11.1% and 7.2% for menaquinone-7. No interference was found between K 1 , menaquinone-4 and menaquinone-7, nor any deuterated internal standards. This method was then used to determine reference values for Caucasian populations of central European origin. Samples were measured from 191 healthy volunteers (51.2 ± 16.2 years (mean ± SD)) and the values concerning K 1 were 0.044–1.357 ng/mL for women and 0.030–1.214 ng/mL for men. The values for menaquinone-4 and menaquinone-7 did not exhibit any differences between women and men, and were 0.050–1.598 and 0.074–0.759 ng/mL, respectively.