Monitoring utilizations of amino acids and vitamins in culture media and Chinese hamster ovary cells by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

Monitoring amino acids and vitamins is important for understanding human health, food nutrition and the culture of mammalian cells used to produce therapeutic proteins in biotechnology. A method including ion pairing reversed-phase liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry was developed and optimized to quantify 21 amino acids and 9 water-soluble vitamins in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells and culture media. By optimizing the chromatographic separation, scan time, monitoring time window, and sample preparation procedure, and using isotopically labeled (13)C, (15)N and (2)H internal standards, low limits of quantitation (≤0.054 mg/L), good precision (