title: Chemical derivatization for forensic drug analysis by GC- and LC-MS.
abstract: Utilizing chemical derivatization (CD) to improve gas chromatographic (GC) and GC-mass spectrometric (MS) analysis of drugs has been abundantly studied and widely practiced, while in liquid chromatography (LC) and LC-MS, application of CD approaches is still at an early stage. Silylation, acylation, and alkylation are common CD reactions, long adopted by GC and GC-MS (including GC-MS/MS) methodologies, to improve analytes' stability and/or to optimize their extraction/separation and detection efficiencies. Highly polar and nonvolatile analytes are not amenable to GC-MS analysis without the CD step; however, CD can improve LC-MS analysis of highly polar analytes, especially those with low molecular weights. Many CD reagents developed for GC and GC-MS applications are also effective in LC-MS. Other CD reagents are developed for LC-MS to enhance analytes' performance under electrospray and atmospheric pressure ionization sources. Certain CD reagents are designed to facilitate analytes' fragmentation (upon collision-induced dissociation) in generating intense product ions for sensitive MS/MS detection. In this review, various CD reagents, reaction types, and application examples are presented and discussed, with emphases on GC-MS and LC-MS analysis of drugs of abuse.
authors: Department of Forensic Toxicology, Institute of Forensic Medicine, Ministry of Justice, New Taipei City, Taiwan.
authors: D L
authors: DL
authors: Lin
authors: Department of Forensic Sciences, Central Police University, Taiyuan City, Taiwan.
authors: S M
authors: SM
authors: Wang
authors: Department of Safety, Health, and Environmental Engineering, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Yunlin County, Taiwan.
authors: C H
authors: CH
authors: Wu
authors: Kaohsiung City, Taiwan.
authors: B G
authors: BG
authors: Chen
authors: Department of Justice Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
authors: R H
authors: RH
authors: Liu
mesh_terms: D000215:Acylation; D000478:Alkylation; D002849:Chromatography, Gas; D002853:Chromatography, Liquid; D053593:Forensic Toxicology; D006801:Humans; D007202:Indicators and Reagents / Q000737:chemistry; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D007202:Indicators and Reagents; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations
keywords: Acylation; GC-MS; GC-MS/MS; LC-MS; LC-MS/MS; alkylation; chemical derivatization; drug analysis; enantiomeric separation