Journal of Chromatography B, 875 (2008) 392–398 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Chromatography B journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/chromb Headspace solid phase microextraction/gas chromatography–mass spectrometry combined to chemometric analysis for volatile organic compounds determination in canine hair: A new tool to detect dog contamination by visceral leishmaniasis Lidia S. de Oliveira a , Frederico de M. Rodrigues a,b , Fabio S. de Oliveira d , Paulo R.R. Mesquita a , Danielle C. Leal c , Adriano C. Alcântara c , Barbara M. Souza c , Carlos R. Franke c , Pedro. A. de P. Pereira a , Jailson B. de Andrade a,∗ a Instituto de Química, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Campus Universitário de Ondina, 40170-290 Salvador, BA, Brazil b Empresa Baiana de Desenvolvimento Agrícola S.A. (EBDA), Salvador, BA, Brazil c Escola de Veterinária, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Campus Universitário de Ondina, Salvador, BA, Brazil d Centro de Ciências da Saúde, Universidade Federal do Recôncavo da Bahia, Cajueiro, Santo Antonio de Jesus, BA, Brazil article info Article history: Received 18 March 2008 Accepted 19 September 2008 Available online 2 October 2008 Keywords: Canine hair VOCs HS-SPME/GC–MS Multivariate optimization PCA Diagnosis Visceral leishmaniasis abstract A new analytical methodology using HS-SPME/GC–MS was optimized in order to attain maximum sen- sitivity, using multivariate strategies. The proposed method was employed to evaluate the VOC profile exhaled from canine hair samples collected from 8 healthy dogs and from 16 dogs infected by Leishmania infantum. 274 VOCs were detected, which could be identified as aldehydes, ketones and hydrocarbons. After application of the Soft Independent Modeling of Class Analogy (SIMCA) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) healthy and infected dogs, with similar VOCs profiles, could be separately grouped, based on compounds such as 2-hexanone, benzaldehyde, and 2,4-nonadienal. The proposed method is non- invasive, painless, readily accepted by dog owners and could be useful to identify several biomarkers with applications in the diagnosis of diseases. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Visceral leishmaniosis (VL) represents a serious problem of pub- lic health, especially due to the gravity of the clinical presentation of the illness and to the raised lethality registered in the absence of treatment [1]. The illness occurs in 65 countries, and about 90% of the human casuistry concentrated in the agricultural and suburban zones of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sudan and Brazil [2]. Presently, it is becoming enlarged in great urban centers [3–5]. Dogs play an important role in the illness cycle, and they are considered the main source of infection for the Lutzomyia longi- palpis, vector of disease, in the domiciliary and peridomiciliary cycle [6,7]. It has been observed that in the case of VL, the vectors are more attracted to feed in infected animals than in healthy animals [8,9]. As the main orientation mechanism for insects is based on the recognition of odors [8], this preference is possibly related to the different odors exhaled by the infected animals. ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: jailsong@ufba.br (J.B. de Andrade). It is well known that illnesses can modify odors exhaled by indi- viduals [10]. Thus, techniques for detection and identification of volatile compounds have been used in the diagnosis of illness, with the advantage to be less invasive and painless [11]. The applications of these techniques have shown useful for several pathologies, such as breast cancer [11], pulmonary cancer [12] and diabetes [13]. In this context, VOCs emitted by canine hair can be representative of the compounds exhaled through dog skin [14]. Thus, this type of sample is easy to collect and therefore acceptable to dog owners. VOCs potentially related to canine odors are expected to be present at trace levels. To improve the sensitivity and preci- sion in the determination of these compounds, samples must be concentrated before gas chromatography/mass spectrometry anal- ysis. Different analytical methods have been developed to extract the VOC, such as solvent extraction, distillation [15,16], dynamic headspace and static headspace [17,18]. However, some of them are laborious, time-consuming and expensive and may lead to erro- neous conclusions about the VOC profile. Therefore, an ideal sample preparation technique should be simple, fast, solvent-free, inexpen- sive and compatible with a wide range of analytical instruments [19]. 1570-0232/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jchromb.2008.09.028