Determination of mevalonic acid in human urine as mevalonic acid lactone by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

Mevalonic acid in urine is converted to its lactone form by incubation overnight at acidic pH, extracted and analysed by GC–MS. The lower limit of quantitation of 7.5 ng/ml provides adequate sensitivity to measure changes in urinary excretion of MVA following administration of drugs which affect cholesterol synthesis. The assay is linear up to 300 ng/ml and has acceptable precision (<15%) and accuracy (<±20%) across the calibration range.