Novel Method Accurately Detects Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormones in Urine

Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormones (GHRHs) are a class of peptides that stimulate the body's natural production of growth hormone. Due to their anabolic and performance-enhancing effects, GHRHs are frequently abused in sports, making their detection crucial for anti-doping efforts. Current analytical methods often face challenges with sensitivity, specificity, and throughput for these complex peptide molecules in biological matrices like urine. This study addresses the need for a more robust and reliable method for detecting GHRHs in urine samples.

The developed method demonstrated exceptional performance for GHRH detection. It achieved high sensitivity, with limits of detection (LODs) ranging from 0.5 pg/mL to 2 pg/mL for the targeted GHRH peptides, and limits of quantification (LOQs) between 1.5 pg/mL and 5 pg/mL. The linearity of the calibration curves was excellent, with correlation coefficients (R²) consistently above 0.995 across a wide concentration range. > The method exhibited outstanding recovery rates, averaging over 92% for all GHRHs across different spiked concentrations, indicating minimal loss during sample preparation. Furthermore, the intra-day and inter-day precision were robust, showing relative standard deviations (RSDs) of less than 5%, confirming the method's reliability and reproducibility for routine analysis. This performance significantly surpasses many existing methods in terms of both sensitivity and recovery.