LC-atmospheric pressure chemical ionization-MS/ MS analysis of multiple illicit drugs,methadone, and their metabolites in oral fluid following protein precipitation

A quantitative LC-APCI-MS/MS method for simultaneous determination of multiple illicit drugs, methadone, and their metabolites in oral fluid was developed and validated. Sample pretreatment was limited to acetonitrile protein precipitation. LC separation was performed in 25.5 min, with a total analysis time of 35 min. Identification and quantitation were based on selected reaction monitoring. Calibration by linear regression analysis utilized deuterated internal standards and a weighing factor 1/x. Limits of detection and lower limits of quantitation (LOQ) were established between 0.25 and 5 ng/ mL and 0.5-10 ng/mL, respectively. linearity was obtained with an average correlation coefficient (R2) of >0.99, over a dynamic range from the LOQ up to maximum 500 ng/mL The method demonstrated good accuracy, intra- and interbatch precision, recovery, and stability for all compounds. No oral fluid matrix effect was observed throughout the chromatographic run. Protein precipitation provided a fast and simple sample pretreatment, while LC-APCI-MS/MS proved to be a sensitive and rugged quantitative method for multiple illicit and legal drugs in oral fluid. The method proved to be suitable for the evaluation of oral fluid as an alternative matrix to urine for monitoring illicit drug use and for determining oral fluid methadone concentrations in pregnant opiate and/or cocaine addicts.     

Capillary column switching restricted-access media-liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry system for simultaneous and direct analysis of drugs in biofluids

Capillary online restricted-access media-liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (RAM-LC-ESI-MS/MS) for direct analysis of drugs and metabolites spiked in biological fluids was developed. Using a column switching setup it was possible to perform effective sample preparation and analysis of raw biological fluids (plasma and urine) without matrix effects in the electrospray mass spectrometric detection step. The peak focusing efficiency of the extraction column was more effective in backflush compared to foreflush mode. The system was able to concentrate diminished samples of polar drugs and their metabolites reaching quantifiable results as low as 1 ng/mL utilizing a sample volume of only 333 nL of biofluids. New column hardware was developed to circumvent clogging problems experienced with plasma injections. The glass fiber filter frit, which is commonly used, was replaced with a short piece of 20 microm i.d. fused silica capillary. The extraction columns were able to handle up to 60 injections and showed a high loading capacity, making the saturation of the MS detector the limiting factor on the linear dynamic range. The simultaneous separation and detection of 10 drugs and metabolites was obtained in 8 min of analysis, including the online sample preparation and enrichment step.     

A four-column parallel chromatography system for isocratic or gradient LC/MS analyses

A novel approach to parallel liquid chromatography/ tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) analyses for pharmacokinetic assays and for similar quantitative applications is presented. Modest modifications render a conventional LC/MS system capable of analyzing samples in parallel. These modifications involve the simple incorporation of three valves and four LC columns into a conventional system composed of one binary LC pumping system, one autosampler, and one mass spectrometer. An increase in sample throughput is achieved by staggering injections onto the four columns, allowing the mass spectrometer to continuously analyze the chromatographic window of interest Using this approach, the optimized run time is slightly greater than the sum of the widths of the desired peaks. This parallel chromatography unit can operate under both gradient and isocratic LC conditions. To demonstrate the utility of the system, atorvastatin, five of its metabolites, and their deuterated internal standards (IS) were analyzed using gradient elution chromatography conditions. The results from a prestudy assay evaluation (PSAE) tray of standards and quality control (QC) samples from extracted spiked human plasma are presented. The relative standard deviation and the accuracy of the QC samples did not exceed 8.1% and 9.6%, respectively, which is well within the acceptance criteria of the pharmaceutical industry. For this particular analysis, the parallel chromatography system decreased the overall run time from 4.5 to 1.65 min and, therefore, increased the overall throughput by a factor of 2.7 in comparison to a conventional LC/MS/MS analytical method.     

ADAP-GC 2.0: Deconvolution of Coeluting Metabolites from GC/TOF-MS Data for Metabolomics Studies

ADAP-GC 2.0 has been developed to deconvolute coeluting metabolites that frequently exist in real biological samples of metabolomics studies. Deconvolution is based on a chromatographic model peak approach that combines five metrics of peak qualities for constructing/selecting model peak features. Prior to deconvolution, ADAP-GC 2.0 takes raw mass spectral data as input, extracts ion chromatograms for all the observed masses, and detects chromatographic peak features. After deconvolution, it aligns components across samples and exports the qualitative and quantitative information of all of the observed components. Centered on the deconvolution, the entire data analysis workflow is fully automated. ADAP-GC 2.0 has been tested using three different types of samples. The testing results demonstrate significant improvements of ADAP-GC 2.0, compared to the previous ADAP 1.0, to identify and quantify metabolites from gas chromatography/time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC/TOF-MS) data in untargeted metabolomics studies.     

Determination of carbamazepine and its metabolites in aqueous samples using liquid chromatography-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry

A quantitative method is described for solid-phase extraction (SPE) followed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) for the simultaneous analysis of carbamazepine and its five metabolites, 10,11-dihydro-10,11-epoxycarbamazepine, 10,11-dihydro-10,11-dihydroxycarbamazepine, 2-hydroxycarbamazepine, 3-hydroxycarbamazepine, and 10,11-dihydro-10-hydroxycarbamazepine. An SPE procedure was used to concentrate target compounds from aqueous samples collected from sewage treatment plant (STP) wastewater and surface water. Extracts were analyzed using electrospray LC-MS/MS with time-scheduled selected reaction monitoring. The recoveries of the analytes were 83.6-102.2% from untreated sewage (influent), 90.6-103.5% from treated sewage (effluent), and 95.7-102.9% from surface water samples. The instrumental detection limits were 0.8-4.8 pg for the analytes. Matrix effects were investigated for the analytes in HPLC-grade water, surface water, and STP influent and effluent. Ion suppression increased for analytes in order of surface water to STP effluent to STP influent, but no ion suppression was observed for analytes in HPLC-grade water. The developed method was validated by analysis of environmental aqueous samples: STP influent and effluent and surface water. Carbamazepine and all five metabolites were detected in STP influent and effluent samples. Only carbamazepine and 10,11-dihydro-10,11-dihydroxycarbamazepine were detected in the surface water sample. Notably, 10,11-dihydro-10,11-dihydroxycarbamazepine was detected at approximately 3 times higher concentrations than the parent drug, carbamazepine, in all of the aqueous samples. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the simultaneous determination of carbamazepine and its metabolites in environmental samples.     

Metabolite identification using automated comparison of high-resolution multistage mass spectral trees

Multistage mass spectrometry (MS(n)) generating so-called spectral trees is a powerful tool in the annotation and structural elucidation of metabolites and is increasingly used in the area of accurate mass LC/MS-based metabolomics to identify unknown, but biologically relevant, compounds. As a consequence, there is a growing need for computational tools specifically designed for the processing and interpretation of MS(n) data. Here, we present a novel approach to represent and calculate the similarity between high-resolution mass spectral fragmentation trees. This approach can be used to query multiple-stage mass spectra in MS spectral libraries. Additionally the method can be used to calculate structure-spectrum correlations and potentially deduce substructures from spectra of unknown compounds. The approach was tested using two different spectral libraries composed of either human or plant metabolites which currently contain 872 MS(n) spectra acquired from 549 metabolites using Orbitrap FTMS(n). For validation purposes, for 282 of these 549 metabolites, 765 additional replicate MS(n) spectra acquired with the same instrument were used. Both the dereplication and de novo identification functionalities of the comparison approach are discussed. This novel MS(n) spectral processing and comparison approach increases the probability to assign the correct identity to an experimentally obtained fragmentation tree. Ultimately, this tool may pave the way for constructing and populating large MS(n) spectral libraries that can be used for searching and matching experimental MS(n) spectra for annotation and structural elucidation of unknown metabolites detected in untargeted metabolomics studies.     

Analysis of organoselenium and organic acid metabolites by laser desorption single photon ionization mass spectrometry

A method for analyzing organoselenium and organic acid metabolites using laser desorption from graphite surfaces coupled to vacuum ultraviolet single photon ionization mass spectrometry (LD/SPI MS) is described. The 1-10-fmol sensitivity and linear dynamic range allows quantitative detection of selenomethionine, trimethylselenonium ion, methylselenogalactosamine, and 1beta-methylseleno-N-acetyl-D-galactosamine in complex biological samples such as human urine. In addition, common urinary metabolites such as tartronic, glutaric, orotic, uric, suberic, and hydroxyhippuric acids, are readily detected. Screening and quantitative detection of these organoselenium and organic acid metabolites is achieved within minutes. The results are also consistent with those obtained using high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry techniques. The study demonstrates the viability of matrix-free LD/SPI MS for molecular characterization and quantitative analysis of biological metabolites in the m/z 10-500 range that are present in complex biological fluids.     

Single-neuron analysis using CE combined with MALDI MS and radionuclide detection

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) has been combined with matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI MS) and radionuclide detection to assay mass-limited biological samples. Nanovial sampling techniques enable injections into the CE capillary from 50 to 150-nL volume samples; after the separation, nanoliter fraction collection combines the CE effluent with a MALDI matrix and minimizes sample spreading, thus allowing both MALDI MS and radionuclide detection on the CE fractions. MALDI MS complements the elution time information of CE by providing accurate molecular mass data, and radionuclide detection provides zeptomole limits of detection with quantitative information. While MALDI MS detects all fully processed peptides at sufficient concentration, culturing the neuron in media containing 35S-Met provides selective radionuclide detection of newly synthesized methionine-containing peptides. The analysis and detection of the expected neuropeptides and hormones in a single 40-microm bag cell neuron from Aplysia californica with CE/MALDI MS/radionuclide detection demonstrates the ability of this hyphenated approach to work with chemically complex mass-limited samples.     

Elemental speciation by parallel elemental and molecular mass spectrometry and peak profile matching

Trace elemental speciation in complex, real-world matrixes is a daunting task because of the low concentration of metals/metalloids and the correspondingly high molecular chemical noise. We constructed a liquid chromatography parallel elemental and molecular mass spectrometry (PEMMS) system and evaluated the use of peak elution profiles to identify trace molecular species containing specific heteroatoms, using the case of Se in yeast. We demonstrate that it is possible to use the HPLC-inductively coupled plasma (ICP)MS peak profile (retention time, width) to identify candidate ions with matching peak profiles in the molecular MS data. Proof of principle was demonstrated by C18 separation of three Se-amino acid standards (0.005-15 ppm as Se). The molecular MS (atmospheric pressure chemical ionization time-of-flight, APCI-TOF-MS) data set was converted into selected ion chromatograms of 0.05 Th width. ICPMS and APCI-TOF-MS ion chromatograms were fit by the Haarhoff-VanderLinde function using the following parameters: area, retention time, width, and skew. The ICPMS fit parameters were more reproducible than the APCI-TOF-MS fit parameters from run to run, and the APCI-TOF-MS signal was expected to limit correlation in most circumstances. Retention time and width were found to correlate well between the two MS systems for APCI-TOF-MS peaks with signal-to-fit-error (S/FE) of >25. Correction factors for differences in flow path length and peak broadening were required. The normalized correction factors were species and concentration independent and were stable from run to run. The skew parameter was found to be highly susceptible to noise and was not generally useful in matching ICPMS and APCI-TOF-MS peaks. An artificially noisy sample was generated by spiking 30 ppb Se-methionine (SeMet) and 5 ppb Se-methylselenocysteine (SeMSC) with unselenized yeast extract and run by PEMMS. The PEMMS software was able to detect four molecular MS peaks associated with SeMet and two for SeMSC, while filtering out >40 coeluting spectral peaks associated with chemical noise in each sample. In summary, we have demonstrated that correlated information in peak shape between parallel detectors can facilitate detection of trace elemental species in complex matrixes.     

Determination of basic antidepressants and their N-desmethyl metabolites in raw sewage and wastewater using solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

A novel analytical method has been developed for the determination of six basic antidepressants (venlafaxine, sertraline, paroxetine, citalopram, amitriptyline, and fluoxetine) and four of their metabolites (O-desmethylvenlafaxine, desmethylsertraline, nortriptyline, and norfluoxetine) in raw sewage and roughly primary-treated wastewater. For analytical development purposes, two ion exchange solid-phase extraction cartridges were compared. Extracts were analyzed using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) with positive-mode electrospray (+ESI) and selected reaction monitoring transitions. The choice of a basic mobile phase significantly improved the instrumental sensitivity (by up to 14-fold for norfluoxetine) relative to common +ESI acidic mobile phases. In addition to the remarkable gain in sensitivity, negligible matrix effects were also observed in the raw sewage samples. Analyte recoveries ranged from 80 to 103% and effluent detection limits from 0.048 to 0.10 ng/L. Samples collected at the Montreal Wastewater Treatment Plant showed the unequivocal presence of all the target compounds at concentrations of 2-346 ng/L. The target antidepressants were also detected in samples taken from the effluent receiving waters (i.e., the St. Lawrence River) but at lower concentrations (0.41-69 ng/L). The highly sensitive proposed method constitutes one of the best means for monitoring the environmental occurrence of tricyclic antidepressants, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and some of their metabolites.     

Component detection weighted index of analogy: similarity recognition on liquid chromatographic mass spectral data for the characterization of route/process specific impurities in pharmaceutical tablets

Detection and identification of impurities in pharmaceuticals is an essential task for determining the possible infringement of a patent. This article reports a multivariate analysis method to distinguish between tablets of the same substance on the basis of their origin, by characterizing route/process specific impurities via diagnostic ion chromatograms, using liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS). The approach is based on the formulation of a novel index that quantifies the similarity between LC/MS samples, named the component detection weighted index of analogy. The index estimates similarity by fully exploiting the two-dimensional nature of the data, where the relative contribution of chromatograms relates to their quality and noise level. Results show that well-defined clusters are formed according to the origin of tablets; a series of ions are identified as characterizing each class and can be used to predict the origin of unknown tablet samples. The method presented is designed for analysis of larger data sets and can be suitable for exploratory analysis where any a priori knowledge on the data is scarce or absent, hence requiring the acquisition of chromatograms in a broad m/z range.     

A strategy for identifying differences in large series of metabolomic samples analyzed by GC/MS

In metabolomics, the purpose is to identify and quantify all the metabolites in a biological system. Combined gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC/MS) is one of the most commonly used techniques in metabolomics together with 1H NMR, and it has been shown that more than 300 compounds can be distinguished with GC/MS after deconvolution of overlapping peaks. To avoid having to deconvolute all analyzed samples prior to multivariate analysis of the data, we have developed a strategy for rapid comparison of nonprocessed MS data files. The method includes baseline correction, alignment, time window determinations, alternating regression, PLS-DA, and identification of retention time windows in the chromatograms that explain the differences between the samples. Use of alternating regression also gives interpretable loadings, which retain the information provided by m/z values that vary between the samples in each retention time window. The method has been applied to plant extracts derived from leaves of different developmental stages and plants subjected to small changes in day length. The data show that the new method can detect differences between the samples and that it gives results comparable to those obtained when deconvolution is applied prior to the multivariate analysis. We suggest that this method can be used for rapid comparison of large sets of GC/MS data, thereby applying time-consuming deconvolution only to parts of the chromatograms that contribute to explain the differences between the samples.     

Identification of major histocompatibility complex-regulated body odorants by statistical analysis of a comparative gas chromatography/mass spectrometry experiment

This paper examines the application of gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) in a comparative experiment to identify volatile compounds from urine that differ in concentration between two groups of inbred mice. A complex mixture might comprise several hundred or even thousands of volatile compounds. Because their number and location in a chromatogram are generally unknown, and because components overlap in populous chromatograms, the statistical problems offer significant challenges beyond traditional two-group screening procedures. We describe a statistical procedure to compare two-dimensional GC/MS profiles between groups, which entails (1) signal processing, baseline correction, and peak detection in single ion chromatograms; (2) aligning chromatograms in time; (3) normalizing differences in overall signal intensities; and (4) detecting chromatographic regions that differ between groups. In an application to chemosignaling, we detect differences in GC/MS chromatograms of ether-extracted urine collected from two inbred groups of mice that differ only in genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). Several dozen MHC-regulated compounds are found, including two known mouse pheromones, 2,5-dimethylpyrazine and 2-sec-butyl-4,5-dihydrothiazole.     

Urine testing for designer steroids by liquid chromatography with androgen bioassay detection and electrospray quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry identification

New anabolic steroids show up occasionally in sports doping and in veterinary control. The discovery of these designer steroids is facilitated by findings of illicit preparations, thus allowing bioactivity testing, structure elucidation using NMR and mass spectrometry, and final incorporation in urine testing. However, as long as these preparations remain undiscovered, new designer steroids are not screened for in routine sports doping or veterinary control urine tests since the established GC/MS and LC/MS/MS methods are set up for the monitoring of a few selected ions or MS/MS transitions of known substances only. In this study, the feasibility of androgen bioactivity testing and mass spectrometric identification is being investigated for trace analysis of designer steroids in urine. Following enzymatic deconjugation and a generic solid-phase extraction, the samples are analyzed by gradient LC with effluent splitting toward two identical 96-well fraction collectors. One well plate is used for androgen bioactivity detection using a novel robust yeast reporter gene bioassay yielding a biogram featuring a 20-s time resolution. The bioactive wells direct the identification efforts to the corresponding well numbers in the duplicate plate. These are subjected to high-resolution LC using a short column packed with 1.7-microm C18 material and coupled with electrospray quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC/QTOFMS) with accurate mass measurement. Element compositions are calculated and used to interrogate electronic substance databases. The feasibility of this approach for doping control is demonstrated via the screening of human urine samples spiked with the designer anabolic steroid tetrahydrogestrinone. Application of the proposed methodology, complementary to the established targeted urine screening for known anabolics, will increase the chance of finding unknown emerging designer steroids, rather then being solely dependent on findings of the illicit preparations themselves.     

Detection and structural characterization of glutathione-trapped reactive metabolites using liquid chromatography-high-resolution mass spectrometry and mass defect filtering

The present study was designed to apply the mass defect filter (MDF) approach to the screening and identification of reactive metabolites using high-resolution mass spectrometry. Glutathione (GSH)-trapped reactive metabolites of acetaminophen, diclofenac, carbamazepine, clozapine, p-cresol, 4-ethylphenol, and 3-methylindole in human liver microsomes (HLM) were analyzed by HPLC coupled with Orbitrap or Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry. Through the selective removal of all ions that fall outside of the GSH adduct MDF template windows, the processed full scan MS chromatograms displayed GSH adducts as major components with no or a few interference peaks. The accurate mass LC-MS data sets were also utilized for the elimination of false positive peaks, detection of stable oxidative metabolites with other MDF templates, and determination of metabolite molecular formulas. Compared to the neutral loss scan by a triple quadrupole instrument, the MDF approach was more sensitive and selective in screening for GSH-trapped reactive metabolites in HLM and rat bile and far more effective in detecting GSH adducts that do not afford the neutral loss of 129 Da as a significant fragmentation pathway. The GSH adduct screening capability of the MDF approach, together with the utility of accurate mass MS/MS information in structural elucidation, makes high-resolution LC-MS a useful tool for analyzing reactive metabolites.     

Applications of Hadamard transform to gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry

Successful application of the Hadamard transform (HT) technique to gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS) is described. Novel sample injection devices were developed to achieve multiple sample injections in both GC and LC instruments. Air pressure was controlled by an electromagnetic valve in GC, while a syringe pump and Tee connector were employed for the injection device in LC. Two well-known, abused drugs, 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA) and N, N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), were employed as model samples. Both of the injection devices permitted precise successive injections, resulting in clearly modulated chromatograms encoded by Hadamard matrices. After inverse Hadamard transformation of the encoded chromatogram, the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios of the signals were substantially improved compared with those expected from theoretical values. The S/N ratios were enhanced approximately 10-fold in HT-GC/MS and 6.8 in HT-LC/MS, using the matrices of 1023 and 511, respectively. The HT-GC/MS was successfully applied to the determination of MDMA in the urine sample of a suspect.     

XCMS2: processing tandem mass spectrometry data for metabolite identification and structural characterization

Mass spectrometry based metabolomics represents a new area for bioinformatics technology development. While the computational tools currently available such as XCMS statistically assess and rank LC-MS features, they do not provide information about their structural identity. XCMS(2) is an open source software package which has been developed to automatically search tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) data against high quality experimental MS/MS data from known metabolites contained in a reference library (METLIN). Scoring of hits is based on a "shared peak count" method that identifies masses of fragment ions shared between the analytical and reference MS/MS spectra. Another functional component of XCMS(2) is the capability of providing structural information for unknown metabolites, which are not in the METLIN database. This "similarity search" algorithm has been developed to detect possible structural motifs in the unknown metabolite which may produce characteristic fragment ions and neutral losses to related reference compounds contained in METLIN, even if the precursor masses are not the same.     

Stable-isotope dimethylation labeling combined with LC-ESI MS for quantification of amine-containing metabolites in biological samples

One of the challenges associated with metabolome profiling in complex biological samples is to generate quantitative information on the metabolites of interest. In this work, a targeted metabolome analysis strategy is presented for the quantification of amine-containing metabolites. A dimethylation reaction is used to introduce a stable isotopic tag onto amine-containing metabolites followed by LC-ESI MS analysis. This labeling reaction employs a common reagent, formaldehyde, to label globally the amine groups through reductive amination. The performance of this strategy was investigated in the analysis of 20 amino acids and 15 amines by LC-ESI MS. It is shown that the labeling chemistry is simple, fast (<10-min reaction time), specific, and provides high yields under mild reaction conditions. The issue of isotopic effects of the labeled amines on reversed-phase (RP) and hydrophilic interaction (HILIC) LC separations was examined. It was found that deuterium labeling causes an isotope effect on the elution of labeled amines on RPLC but has no effect on HILIC LC. However, 13C-dimethylation does not show any isotope effect on either RPLC or HILIC LC, indicating that 13C-labeling is a preferred approach for relative quantification of amine-containing metabolites in different samples. The isotopically labeled 35 amine-containing analogues were found to be stable and proved to be effective in overcoming matrix effects in both relative and absolute quantification of these analytes present in a complicated sample, human urine. Finally, the characteristic mass difference provides additional structural information that reveals the existence of primary or secondary amine functional groups in amine-containing metabolites. As an example, for a human urine sample, a total of 438 pairs of different amine-containing metabolites were detected, at signal-to-noise ratios of greater than 10, by using the labeling strategy in conjunction with RP LC-ESI Fourier-transform ion cyclotron resonance MS.