Gas chromatographic determination of 3-butene-1,2-diol in urine samples after 1,3-butadiene exposure.

1,3-Butadiene is an important industrial chemical and a common environmental contaminant. Because of its suspected carcinogenicity butadiene-related research has gained high activity. The obvious lack of knowledge so far has been that a biomonitoring method that can detect at least one of the metabolites of butadiene from body fluids or excretas does not exist. In this communication we describe a robust and simple analytical method which can be applied for biomonitoring purposes. We have developed a method that can detect 3-butene-1,2-diol in urine samples of rats inhalation-exposed to various concentrations of 1,3-butadiene. The method is based on liquid-liquid extraction and subsequent gas chromatographic analysis. The extraction efficiency of 3-butene-1,2-diol at a concentration of 2.2 microg/ml was 95% (SD=+/-3%, n=3) and was achieved by using sodium chloride saturation and isopropanol as an extracting solvent. The standard deviation of the gas chromatographic analysis was +/-2% (n=12), the limit of detection was 0.08 microg/ml, the limit of quantitation was 0.11 microg/ml (SD=+/-4.8%, n=3) and the analysis was observed to be linear from 0.11 to 486 microg/ml (R=0.9987). Animals exposed to 1,3-butadiene showed a linear excretion of 3-butene-1,2-diol into urine as a function of butadiene exposure. During the exposure saturation of metabolism or accumulation of 1,3-butadiene or 3-butene-1,2-diol into the body was not observed in any exposure levels used.