Simple, fast and inexpensive quantification of glycolate in the urine of patients with primary hyperoxaluria type 1

In primary hyperoxaluria type 1 excessive endogenous production of oxalate and glycolate leads to increased urinary excretion of these metabolites. Although genetic testing is the most definitive and preferred diagnostic method, quantification of these metabolites is important for the diagnosis and evaluation of potential therapeutic interventions. Current metabolite quantification methods use laborious, technically highly complex and expensive liquid, gas or ion chromatography tandem mass spectrometry, which are available only in selected laboratories worldwide. Incubation of ortho-aminobenzaldehyde (oABA) with glyoxylate generated from glycolate using recombinant mouse glycolate oxidase (GO) and glycine leads to the formation of a stable dihydroquinazoline double aromatic ring chromophore with specific peak absorption at 440 nm. The urinary limit of detection and estimated limit of quantification derived from eight standard curves were 14.3 and 28.7 µmol glycolate per mmol creatinine, respectively. High concentrations of oxalate, lactate and L-glycerate do not interfere in this assay format. The correlation coefficient between the absorption and an ion chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method is 93% with a p value < 0.00001. The Bland–Altmann plot indicates acceptable agreement between the two methods. The glycolate quantification method using conversion of glycolate via recombinant mouse GO and fusion of oABA and glycine with glyoxylate is fast, simple, robust and inexpensive. Furthermore this method might be readily implemented into routine clinical diagnostic laboratories for glycolate measurements in primary hyperoxaluria type 1.