Microfluidic chip based nano liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry for the determination of abused drugs and metabolites in human hair

Anal Bioanal Chem. 2012 Mar;402(9):2805-15. doi: 10.1007/s00216-012-5711-6. Epub 2012 Jan 27.

Abstract

A microfluidic chip based nano-HPLC coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (nano-HPLC-Chip-MS/MS) has been developed for simultaneous measurement of abused drugs and metabolites: cocaine, benzoylecgonine, cocaethylene, norcocaine, morphine, codeine, 6-acetylmorphine, phencyclidine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, MDMA, MDA, MDEA, and methadone in the hair of drug abusers. The microfluidic chip was fabricated by laminating polyimide films and it integrated an enrichment column, an analytical column and a nanospray tip. Drugs were extracted from hairs by sonication, and the chromatographic separation was achieved in 15 min. The drug identification and quantification criteria were fulfilled by the triple quardropule tandem mass spectrometry. The linear regression analysis was calibrated by deuterated internal standards with all of the R(2) at least over 0.993. The limit of detection (LOD) and the limit of quantification (LOQ) were from 0.1 to 0.75 and 0.2 to 1.25 pg/mg, respectively. The validation parameters including selectivity, accuracy, precision, stability, and matrix effect were also evaluated here. In conclusion, the developed sample preparation method coupled with the nano-HPLC-Chip-MS/MS method was able to reveal the presence of drugs in hairs from the drug abusers, with the enhanced sensitivity, compared with the conventional HPLC-MS/MS.

Publication types

  • Evaluation Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / methods*
  • Hair / chemistry*
  • Hair / metabolism
  • Humans
  • Illicit Drugs / analysis*
  • Illicit Drugs / metabolism
  • Limit of Detection
  • Microfluidics / methods*
  • Nanotechnology / methods*
  • Substance Abuse Detection / methods*
  • Tandem Mass Spectrometry / methods*

Substances

  • Illicit Drugs