Project description:The emergence of novel drugs and the continuous expansion of the scope of the types of drugs under control have greatly increased requests for screening of a range of drugs in hair. Here, a multi-analyte method for the detection and quantification of 88 psychotropic drugs in the hair of addicts in drug abstinence was developed and fully validated using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Hair samples (25 mg) were washed, cut into pieces, cryogenically ground, and extracted in methanol. The extracted analytes were separated on an Allure PFPP column (100×2.1 mm, 5 mm i.d., Restek, USA) and analyzed by LC-MS/MS in multiple reaction monitoring mode. The limits of detection and limits of quantification ranged from 0.1 to 20 pg/mg and 0.2 to 50 pg/mg, respectively. The intra- and inter-assay precisions (RSD) of all analysis ranged from 0.9 to 14.9% and 1.9 to 15.9%, respectively. Accuracy values were 100±20%. The extraction recovery of quality control samples ranged from 50.9% to 99.6% for all analytes. The matrix effects for all analytes ranged from 46.8% to 99.7%. The method was successfully used to analyze 1,865 hair samples from addicts in drug rehabilitation at their own communities.. Among the samples, 129 cases were positive; the majority of positive cases were from males (78.29%), 92.25% of whom were over 35 years old. Traditional drugs, like methamphetamine and opioids, accounted for most positive cases, and 27 of the abstinence cases with a use history of methamphetamine were still positive. In addition to abused drugs, like methamphetamine, morphine, and cocaine, the sedative hypnotic and psychotherapeutic drugs, including clonazepam, alprazolam, estazolam, zolpidem, and quetiapine, were detected in 26% of the hair samples, suggesting that these addicts may have insomnia and mental problems such as depression and psychosis, probably due to the long-term effects of drugs and withdrawal reactions. Three synthetic cannabinoids were also detected in 4 (2.7%) cases. A total of 37 cases were positive for methadone, tramadol, and dextromethorphan, reflecting a new trend of alternative drug use when traditional drugs were not easy to obtain during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Project description:Fentanyl, and the numerous drugs derived from it, are contributing to the opioid overdose epidemic currently underway in the USA. To identify human exposure to these growing public health threats, an LC-MS-MS method for 5 μL dried blood spots (DBS) was developed. This method was developed to detect exposure to 3-methylfentanyl, alfentanil, α-methylfentanyl, carfentanil, fentanyl, lofentanil, sufentanil, norcarfentanil, norfentanyl, norlofentanil, norsufentanil, and using a separate LC-MS-MS injection, cyclopropylfentanyl, acrylfentanyl, 2-furanylfentanyl, isobutyrylfentanyl, ocfentanil and methoxyacetylfentanyl. Preparation of materials into groups of compounds was used to accommodate an ever increasing need to incorporate newly identified fentanyls. This protocol was validated within a linear range of 1.00-100 ng/mL, with precision ≤12% CV and accuracy ≥93%, as reported for the pooled blood QC samples, and limits of detection as low as 0.10 ng/mL. The use of DBS to assess fentanyl analog exposures can facilitate rapid sample collection, transport, and preparation for analysis that could enhance surveillance and response efforts in the ongoing opioid overdose epidemic.
Project description:The emergence of new psychoactive substances on the market is a significant problem on a global scale. This type of substance in society is associated with many negative consequences, such as traffic accidents, accidents at work, rape, homicide, poisoning, or overdose deaths. The analysis of these substances in biological samples is very important for further legal action and saving lives. Therefore, laboratories face a tremendous challenge in tackling the evolving drug market. The paper describes the optimization of the analytical LC-MS/MS method to identify and determine 513 psychoactive substances in hair samples. A method of chromatographic separation was developed, and the working parameters of the mass spectrometer were selected for each analyte. The method has been validated, and the results are as follows: the limit of quantification of the developed method ranges from 0.025 to 1.25 ng/mg hair. The mean recovery of the tested analytes ranges from 80 to 120%. The achieved coefficient of variation in within-run precision ranged from 1.05 to 19.99%. The results achieved for BIAS are in the range of ± 20%.
Project description:Long-term dependence of illicit drugs impairs the function of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which regulates the secretion of endogenous steroids, cortisol, and cortisone. Thus, the present study aimed to develop a sensitive method for simultaneous determination of the multiple illicit drugs and two steroids in hair to monitor the status of illicit drug exposure and the physiological and psychological health of drug addicts. The target analytes were extracted from hair by incubation with 1 mL methanol for 24 h at 40 °C and then determined with LC-APCI+-MS/MS. The validated method showed acceptable linearity (R2 > 0.99) in the range of 1.25-250 pg/mg for cortisol and cortisone, 2.5-125 pg/mg for heroin, 2.5-1250 pg/mg for ketamine, 2.5-5000 pg/mg for methamphetamine (MAM), 2.5-250 pg/mg for 3, 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), morphine, and 6-monoacetylmorphine (6-AM). Limits of quantification were 1.6, 1.2, 1.6, 1.0, 1.4, 0.3, 2.1, and 1.2 pg/mg for cortisol, cortisone, heroin, ketamine, MAM, MDMA, morphine, and 6-AM, respectively. Method recoveries were from 90-115% for all analytes. Inter-day and intra-day coefficients of variation were within 10%. Finally, this method was successfully applied to detect the aforementioned analytes in hair among female drug addicts who self-reported to be MAM abuser, heroin abuser, ketamine abuser, and abuser of mixture drugs of MAM and heroin. MAM abusers with current MAM use showed significantly higher concentrations of cortisol, MAM, and MDMA than controls with drug withdrawal.
Project description:BackgroundThe determination of antiretroviral drugs in hair is receiving considerable research interest to assess long-term adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART). Currently in China, lamivudine, zidovudine, nevirapine, efavirenz, ritonavir, and lopinavir are combined as first-line and second-line free therapy regimens and are recommended for people living with HIV (PLWH). Simultaneous determination of the 6 antiretroviral drugs in human hair is important for accurately and widely assessing long-term adherence in Chinese PLWH receiving different ART regimens.MethodsSix drugs were extracted from 10-mg hair samples incubated in methanol for 16 hours at 37°C and then analyzed by liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry using a mobile phase of 95% methanol, with an electrospray ionization source in multiple reaction monitoring and positive mode.ResultsThe LC-ESI+-MS/MS method exhibited a linear range (R2 > 0.99) within 6-5000, 10-5000, 6-50,000, 12-50,000, 8-5000, and 8-12,500 pg/mg for lamivudine, zidovudine, nevirapine, efavirenz, ritonavir, and lopinavir. For all 6 drugs, the limits of quantification ranged between 6 and 12 pg/mg. The intraday and interday coefficients of variation were within 15%, and the recoveries ranged from 91.1% to 113.7%. Furthermore, the other validation parameters (ie, selectivity, matrix effect, stability, and carryover) met the acceptance criteria stipulated by guidelines of the US Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency. Significant intergroup differences were observed between high-adherence and low-adherence groups, with high intercorrelations in the hair content of the 6 drugs.ConclusionsThe developed method demonstrated good reliability, to comprehensively and accurately assess adherence in PLWH receiving different ART regimens.
Project description:While pesticides have become a primary tool in modern agriculture, these compounds remain a high priority on the list of consumer concerns regarding food safety. The use of pesticides in the production and post-harvesting of lemon fruits is widely used to ensure agricultural yield and fruit quality. Therefore, monitoring studies on citrus fruits to enforce regulatory compliance and ensure food safety is in great demand. The aim of this study was to monitor multi-class pesticide residues in lemon fruits commercialized in Turkey. The transmission of residues that existed on the outer surface of the fruit into its juice was also studied. Whole fruits and lemon juice samples were prepared using the quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe (QuEChERS) methodology prior to analysis. For the screening and quantification of 355 pesticide residues, liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS) were used. The analytical method has been shown to have a sufficiently low limit of quantification with respect to current maximum residue limits (MRLs) for all target analytes. The obtained recovery and precision parameters fulfilled the requirements in DG SANTE guidelines. The in-house validated analytical method was then applied for the determination of 355 pesticide substances in 100 whole fruit samples and their juices. Sixteen different residues were detected in 43% of lemon fruits, whereas 57 lemon samples were pesticide-free. The MRLs exceedances were recorded in 29 lemon samples. The most frequently detected (17%) pesticide in lemon fruits was chlorpyrifos-methyl, with a range of 0.013-0.098 mg kg-1. A lower frequency was detected for metamitron (10%, 0.027-0.118 mg kg-1), buprofezin (9%, 0.023-0.076 mg kg-1), pyriproxyfen (9%, 0.021-0.102 mg kg-1) and malathion (7%, 0.100-0.482 mg kg-1) in whole fruits. However, none of the pesticide residues were detected in lemon juice samples. These results showed that target analytes are unable to penetrate the lemon exocarp and/or endocarp.
Project description:Electron Impact Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (EI-GC-MS) and High Resolution Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (HR-LC-MS) have been used in the analysis of products arising from the trichloroethoxycarbonylation of fentanyl and acetylfentanyl in urine and plasma matrices. The method involves the initial extraction of both synthetic opioids separately from the matrices followed by detection of the unique products that arise from their reaction with 2,2,2-trichloroethoxycarbonyl chloride (Troc-Cl), namely Troc-norfentanyl and Troc-noracetylfentanyl. The optimized protocol was successfully evaluated for its efficacy at detecting these species formed from fentanyl and acetylfentanyl when present at low and high levels in urine (fentanyl: 5 and 10 ng/mL and acetylfentanyl: 20 and 100 ng/mL) and plasma (fentanyl: 10 and 20 ng/mL and acetylfentanyl: 50 and 200 ng/mL), values that reflect levels reported in overdose victims. The HR-LC-MS method's LOQ (limit of quantitation) for the Troc-norfentanyl and Troc-noracetylfentanyl products was determined to be ~10 ng/mL for both species. Even though the superiority in the detection of these species by HR-LC-MS over EI-GC-MS, the latter method proved to be important in the detection of the second product from the reaction, namely 2-phenylethyl chloride that is crucial in the determination of the original opioid. This observation highlights the importance of using complimentary analytical techniques in the analysis of a sample, whether biological or environmental in nature. The method herein serves as a complementary, qualitative confirmation for the presence of a fentanyl in collected urine, plasma and by extension other biological samples amenable to the common extraction procedures described for opioid analysis. More importantly, the method's main strength comes from its ability to react with unknown fentanyls to yield products that can be not only detected by EI-GC-MS and HR-LC-MS but can then be used to retrospectively identify an unknown fentanyl.
Project description:The measure of hair cortisol concentration (HCC) is becoming an emerging approach to monitor mid-/long-term stress in animals, so it is more and more important to develop accurate and reliable methods. In the light of this, the aim of the present study was to compare mane HCCs of 47 horses with different managements, by means of an immunoassay (ELISA) and liquid chromatography coupled to hybrid high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS/MS). After the washing step, the ground hair was extracted with methanol. The extract was evaporated and redissolved in two different aqueous solutions, depending on the detection technique. The methods were validated according to EMA guideline for bioanalytical method validation, in the range 2-50 pg mg-1 (ELISA) and 1-100 pg mg-1 (LC-HRMS/MS). Satisfactory quantitative performances were obtained for both of the approaches, but this latter demonstrated better precision. The detected concentrations in real samples were encompassing the range 1.3-8.8 pg mg-1 and 2.0-17.9 pg mg-1 by means of LC-HRMS/MS and ELISA, respectively. Overall, HCCs measured with ELISA technique were 1.6 times higher. The overestimation of immunoassay results might be caused by cross-reactivity phenomena of laboratory reagents and other structurally similar hormones present in the mane.
Project description:Narcotic and psychotropic substances are natural, synthetic, or semisynthetic compounds that are present in both solid and liquid illicit products. The alterations effects on the central nervous system related to their use can be psycholeptic, psychoanaleptic, or psychodiseptic and are able to generate tolerance, addiction, or dependence phenomena, creating social and public order problems. In this scenario, the analytical evaluations that aim to determine these analytes in seized nonbiological samples, and which assume the character of judicial evidence, must meet high analytical requirements of reliability, transparency, and procedures uniformity at a national level. For the first time in the literature, the herein validated method is able to provide the simultaneous quantitative determination of 37 of the most common narcotic substances as well as the most commonly used excipients/adulterants found in seized illicit material. Additionally, the validated method can process both solid and liquid samples maintaining the precision and trueness levels (intraday and interday) in accordance with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency international guidelines (<14.31 and <13.41%, respectively). Furthermore, it provides a simple and fast procedure for sample preparation using the dilute and shoot approach, exploiting the sensitivity and selectivity of the LC-MS/MS instrument configuration used and the signal acquisition in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode (both positive and negative polarization modes).
Project description:AimDetermination of piperaquine (PQ) in pediatric plasma requires a method with a small sample volume.ResultsWe report a sensitive LC-MS/MS method for quantitation of PQ with only 25 µl human plasma. Using a deuterated internal standard (PQ-d6), an analytical PFP column, APCI(+) as the ion source and MRM (535/288 for PQ and 541/294 for the IS) for detection, the method has a linear calibration range of 1.5-250 ng/ml with a runtime of 3.0 min per sample. The method was applied to plasma samples from children.ConclusionThe developed LC-MS/MS method is suitable for pediatric studies with small volume plasma samples collected via capillary tubes. One limitation was the performance of PFP columns varied among different brands.