Rapid pretreatment for multi-sample analysis of advanced glycation end products and their role in nephropathy.

Advanced glycation end products (AGEs), produced by the Maillard reaction between carbohydrates and proteins, may be involved in diabetes and its complications. Accurate quantification of AGEs can demonstrate the relation between AGEs and pathological conditions, but it is not widely used in clinical practice because of the multiple pretreatment steps before analyses. We developed a fully automated solid-phase extraction system (FSPES) to simplify rate-limiting pretreatment using a cation exchange column.