Hair-based rapid analyses for multiple drugs in forensics and doping: application of dynamic multiple reaction monitoring with LC-MS/MS

Chemistry Central Journal

Iltaf Shah³  Andrea Petroczi³  Martina Uvacsek¹  Márta Ránky²  Declan P Naughton³ 

[1] Faculty of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

[2] Eötvös Lóránd University, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Budapest, Hungary

[3] School of Life Sciences, Kingston University, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, UK

关键词: Drugs of abuse;    Toxicology;    Forensics;    Doping;    Controlled drugs;    Human hair;    LC-MS/MS;    Dynamic MRM;   

Others  :  1082299
DOI  :  10.1186/s13065-014-0073-0

 received in 2014-09-19, accepted in 2014-11-26,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Considerable efforts are being extended to develop more effective methods to detect drugs in forensic science for applications such as preventing doping in sport. The aim of this study was to develop a sensitive and accurate method for analytes of forensic and toxicological nature in human hair at sub-pg levels.

Results

The hair test covers a range of different classes of drugs and metabolites of forensic and toxicological nature including selected anabolic steroids, cocaine, amphetamines, cannabinoids, opiates, bronchodilators, phencyclidine and ketamine. For extraction purposes, the hair samples were decontaminated using dichloromethane, ground and treated with 1 M sodium hydroxide and neutralised with hydrochloric acid and phosphate buffer and the homogenate was later extracted with hexane using liquid-liquid extraction (LLE). Following extraction from hair samples, drug-screening employed liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometric (LC-MS/MS) analysis using dynamic multiple reaction monitoring (DYN-MRM) method using proprietary software. The screening method (for > 200 drugs/metabolites) was calibrated with a tailored drug mixture and was validated for 20 selected drugs for this study. Using standard additions to hair sample extracts, validation was in line with FDA guidance. A Zorbax Eclipse plus C18 (2.1 mm internal diameter × 100 mm length × 1.8 μm particle size) column was used for analysis. Total instrument run time was 8 minutes with no noted matrix interferences. The LOD of compounds ranged between 0.05-0.5 pg/mg of hair. 233 human hair samples were screened using this new method and samples were confirmed positive for 20 different drugs, mainly steroids and drugs of abuse.

Conclusions

This is the first report of the application of this proprietary system to investigate the presence of drugs in human hair samples. The method is selective, sensitive and robust for the screening and confirmation of multiple drugs in a single analysis and has potential as a very useful tool for the analysis of large array of controlled substances and drugs of abuse.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Shah et al.; licensee Springer.

【 图 表 】

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