ABSTRACT
Stable isotope coded derivatization (ICD) is an isotope labeling technique for specific functional groups of the target analytes through chemical derivatization.ICD combined with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) enables systematically analyzing the biomolecules with the same labeling reaction characteristic.ICD technique can effectively solve the limited sensitivity in complex bio-matrices analysis and unavailability of isotope internal standards in quantitative analysis.In recent years, ICD technique has been widely used in metabolomics research field.Based on this background, the ICD technique and the design of ICD reagents are briefly described in this review.The recent advances in ICD reagents for carboxyl, amino, carbonyl, thiol and hydroxyl groups and their applications in the analysis of small molecule metabolites in bio-matrices with LC-MS/MS are reviewed.