TY - JOUR

T1 - Toxicological screening of basic drugs in whole blood using UPLC-TOF-MS

AU - Dalsgaard, Petur Weihe

AU - Rasmussen, Brian Schou

AU - Müller, Irene Breum

AU - Linnet, Kristian

N1 - Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - Ultra performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) coupled with time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometry (MS) was established for toxicological screening of basic drugs in whole blood and tested on authentic samples. Whole blood samples (0.2 ml) were extracted using a Gilson apparatus equipped with Bond Elut Certify columns. Screening was performed for 175 compounds (psychotropic, cardiovascular, designer, and abused drugs). The drugs were separated in 15 min using a UPLC system (Waters ACQUITY BEH C18, 1.7 µm, 2.1 mm × 100 mm column) coupled to an LCT Premier XE (Waters) instrument. Data were processed by ChromaLynx XS using identification criteria of ± 0.2 min retention time, and ± 5 mDa mass tolerance. Whole blood was spiked with the 175 compounds in concentrations from 5-100 µg/kg to assess approximately the lowest concentrations that could be identified. This method was further applied to 119 samples from forensic investigations, leading to 302 hits, of which 291 (96%) were subsequently verified, in concentrations exceeding the lower limit of quantification (LLOQ), by a liquid chromatography (LC)-MS/MS confirmation method. In conclusion, this UPLC-TOF-MS method is a useful and effective screening method for basic drugs in whole blood.

AB - Ultra performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) coupled with time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometry (MS) was established for toxicological screening of basic drugs in whole blood and tested on authentic samples. Whole blood samples (0.2 ml) were extracted using a Gilson apparatus equipped with Bond Elut Certify columns. Screening was performed for 175 compounds (psychotropic, cardiovascular, designer, and abused drugs). The drugs were separated in 15 min using a UPLC system (Waters ACQUITY BEH C18, 1.7 µm, 2.1 mm × 100 mm column) coupled to an LCT Premier XE (Waters) instrument. Data were processed by ChromaLynx XS using identification criteria of ± 0.2 min retention time, and ± 5 mDa mass tolerance. Whole blood was spiked with the 175 compounds in concentrations from 5-100 µg/kg to assess approximately the lowest concentrations that could be identified. This method was further applied to 119 samples from forensic investigations, leading to 302 hits, of which 291 (96%) were subsequently verified, in concentrations exceeding the lower limit of quantification (LLOQ), by a liquid chromatography (LC)-MS/MS confirmation method. In conclusion, this UPLC-TOF-MS method is a useful and effective screening method for basic drugs in whole blood.

U2 - 10.1002/dta.303

DO - 10.1002/dta.303

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 21916023

VL - 4

SP - 313

EP - 319

JO - Drug Testing and Analysis

JF - Drug Testing and Analysis

SN - 1942-7603

IS - 5

ER -