A study of ion suppression effects in electrospray ionization from mobile phase additives and solid-phase extracts.
Since the wide adoption of liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS), the ion suppression/enhancement phenomenon is the latest barrier to high-throughput analysis. This consequence of a nonoptimized analytical method can lead to adverse effects during quantitation (i.e. poor accuracy and precision). Previous papers have reported that ion suppression is a direct result of endogenous material present in biological samples. However, in the case of a solid-phase liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (SPE/LC/MS/MS) system, the measured result is the combination of several operating conditions and parameters. Little has been done to effectively monitor and/or choose optimized conditions for the complete sequence of extraction, clean up, separation and analysis. This paper describes a simple setup for quantification of ion suppression/enhancement. Several mobile phase additives, ion-pairing agents and SPE extracts were measured and compared against a standard reference. The results demonstrated that a clean up of plasma extracts based on ion exchange leads to minimal ion suppression/enhancement for the compounds that were investigated.
Mallet
Claude R
CR
Waters Corporation, 34 Maple St., Milford, MA 01757-3696, USA. claude_mallet@waters.com
Lu
Ziling
Z
Mazzeo
Jeff R
JR
D016477:Artifacts; D002853:Chromatography, Liquid; D006801:Humans; D007202:Indicators and Reagents / Q000737:chemistry*; D007477:Ions; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods; D044367:Phase Transition; D010949:Plasma / Q000737:chemistry*; D012996:Solutions / Q000737:chemistry; D021241:Spectrometry, Mass, Electrospray Ionization / Q000379:methods*
D007202:Indicators and Reagents; D007477:Ions; D012996:Solutions