In man folates are catabolized and excreted as inactive cleaved degradation products, a mixture of pteridines and p-aminobenzoylglutamate (pABGlu) or its acetamido derivative (apABGlu). The daily rate of excretion represents the inescapable use of the vitamin in metabolic activity and thus has implications for determining the recommended dietary allowance for the vitamin. Furthermore, the rate of catabolism has been suggested to rise during pregnancy and in certain disease states. A method is described for the quantitative extraction and assay of the folate catabolites pABGlu and apABGlu in human urine. Aliquots of 24-h urine collections are acidified and applied to columns of Dowex 50W cation-exchange resin. The catabolites are selectively batch-eluted with increasing concentrations of HCl. The fraction containing pABGlu is diazotized and then applied to a C18 Sep Pak column for further purification and concentration. The fraction containing apABGlu was deacetylated and reapplied to the Dowex column and then treated identically to the pABGlu fraction. The methanolic concentrates of both extracts were evaporated to dryness and reconstituted with water and pABGlu was regenerated by reductive cleavage of the diazotized material with Zn/HCl. The extracts of the two catabolites were separated by reverse-phase HPLC using a Radial Pak C18 column. Recovery of isolated material was monitored by the addition of high specific activity tritiated labels of both compounds added as internal standards to all urine aliquots prior to purification and analysis.