Simultaneous Quantification of Glycine- and Taurine-conjugated Bile Acids, Total Bile Acids and Phospholipids in Human Bile by using H MRS

INTRODUCTION: Bile acids, phospholipids, and cholesterol are the major lipid components in human bile [1]. The composition of bile is altered in various chronic cholestatic diseases and determining such alterations will be of great clinical importance in understanding the pathophysiology of these diseases [2]. Although there are a few chromatographic [3] and NMR-based methods [4,5] available for the quantification of glycineand taurine-conjugated bile acids in bile, they are limited to in vitro applications. Recently, the feasibility of in vivo H MRS of bile has been tested in humans [6] and cynomolgus monkeys [7]. In this study, we propose a robust method for the simultaneous quantification of glycine-conjugated bile acids (GCBAs), taurine-conjugated bile acids (TCBAs), total bile acids (TBAs) and phospholipids (PLs) in a single step, which could be extended to in vivo applications.