Method for detecting urinary tract infections and sample analysis using liquid chromatography

Abstract

Methods for analyzing a urine sample to determine if it contains a microorganism linked to an infection. The method comprising: providing culture-independent urine sample from patient; and analyzing the sample; where the culture-independent urine sample contains a microorganism linked to a UTI if at least one decarboxylated amino acid metabolite selected from agmatine, putrescine or cadaverine is detected in the culture-independent urine sample. The presence of agmatine is strongly indicative of a urinary tract infection caused by a majority of UTI-causing microorganisms. Another method for sample analysis, for or apart from UTI issues, employs liquid chromatography and mass spectroscopy of eluents separated using continuous chromatography of a sample spiked with an amount of isotopically labelled target compound. In another embodiment, the method further employs two-stage, isocratic continuous chromatography and possibly including chromatography through more than one column with elution to a common mass spectrometer.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.