Synephrine as a Specific Marker for Orange Consumption

To validate the suitability of synephrine, known to be a highly abundant alkaloid in oranges, as a dietary biomarker for orange consumption, a highly sensitive and robust stable isotope dilution analysis (SIDA) as well as an ECHO method, using the analyte itself as a pseudointernal standard injected into the analysis run to provide an "echo peak" of the analyte, was developed to quantitate synephrine by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) in citrus juices and human urine before and after the ingestion of orange juice. A citrus juice screening revealed high synephrine concentrations of 150-420 nmol/mL in orange (n = 11) and tangerine (n = 2) juices, whereas 20-100 times lower levels were found in juice from grapefruit (n = 14), lemon (n = 5), pomelo (n = 2), and lime (n = 4). Application of the SIDA to quantitate synephrine in sulfatase/glucuronidase-treated urine samples (n = 10) after orange juice consumption showed an increase of synephrine from trace levels (0.1 ± 0.1 nmol/mL) in the 2-day washout phase to a maximum concentration of 8.9 (±5.5) nmol/mL found 4 h after ingestion of orange juice. Whereas proline betaine was recently reported as a dietary biomarker indicating the ingestion of any citrus product and Chinese artichoke, synephrine can be used a reliable additional biomarker with high specificity for orange and tangerine.