title: Liquid chromatography high-resolution TOF analysis: investigation of MSE for broad-spectrum drug screening.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  High-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) has the potential to supplement other drug screening platforms used in toxicology laboratories. HRMS offers high analytical specificity, which can be further enhanced by incorporating a fragment ion for each analyte. The ability to obtain precursor ions and fragment ions using elevated collision energies (MS(E)) can help improve the specificity of HRMS methods.
  
  
  METHODS
  We developed a broad-spectrum screening method on an ultraperformance liquid chromatography TOF mass spectrometer (UPLC-TOF-MS) using the MS(E) mode. A diverse set of patient samples were subjected to a simple dilute, hydrolyze, and shoot protocol and analyzed in a blind manner. Data were processed with 3 sets of criteria with increasing stringency, and the results were compared with the reference laboratory results.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A combination of retention time match (±0.2 min), a protonated analyte, and fragment ion mass accuracy of ±5 ppm produced zero false-positive results. Using these criteria, we confirmed 92% (253/275) of true positives. The positive confirmation rate increased to 98% (270/275) when the requirement for a fragment ion was dropped, but also produced 53 false positives. A total of 136 additional positive drug findings not identified by the reference methods were identified with the UPLC-TOF-MS.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  MS(E) provides a unique way to incorporate fragment ion information without the need of precursor ion selection. A primary limitation of requiring a fragment ion for positive identification was that certain drug classes required high-energy collisions, which formed many fragment ions of low abundance that were not readily detected.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Center for Advanced Laboratory Medicine, University of California, San Diego Health Systems, San Diego, CA; nchindarkar@ucsd.edu.
authors.forename: Nandkishor S
authors.initials: NS
authors.lastname: Chindarkar
authors.affiliation: Waters Corp., Pleasanton, CA.
authors.forename: Michael R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Wakefield
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Center for Advanced Laboratory Medicine, University of California, San Diego Health Systems, San Diego, CA;
authors.forename: Judith A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Stone
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Center for Advanced Laboratory Medicine, University of California, San Diego Health Systems, San Diego, CA;
authors.forename: Robert L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Fitzgerald
mesh_terms: D002853:Chromatography, Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D016903:Drug Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006801:Humans; D057230:Limit of Detection; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*