Analytical methods isotope labelling

Before sample preparation, surrogate compounds must be added to the matrix. These are used to evaluate the efficiency of recovery of sample for any analytical method. Surrogate standards are often brominated, fluorinated, or isotopically labeled compounds that are not expected to be present in environmental media. If the surrogates are detected by GC/MS within the specified range, it is... 

Adequate precision and accuracy are only likely to be achieved if some standardization procedure is employed and the nature of this, internal or external standards or the method of standard additions, needs to be chosen carefully. If internal standardization procedures are adopted then appropriate compound(s) must be chosen and their effect on the chromatographic and mass spectrometry methods assessed. The ideal internal standard is an isotopically labelled analogue of the analyte but, although there are a number of commercial companies who produce a range of such molecules, these are not always readily available. An analytical laboratory is then faced with the choice of carrying out the synthesis of the internal standard themselves or choosing a less appropriate alternative with implications on the accuracy and precision of the method to be developed. 

Isotopic-labeled tracers behave like the components in the fluid of interest. For example, tritium water behaves like water. If less similar chemicals are used as tracers, selective adsorption, chemical reaction, and liquid-liquid distribution must be considered. The tracer must be chosen so that the analytic method is sufficiently sensitive to detect the tracer in the desired amounts. 

Wheat samples are extracted with dilute ammonia on the ASE200. The extracts are amended with isotopically labeled internal standards. The extracts are purified by sequential octadecyl reversed-phase solid-phase extraction (Cig SPE) and ethylenediamine-iV-propyl anion exchange (PSA) SPE. The samples are analyzed by LC/MS/MS. This method determines crop residues of flucarbazone-sodium and A-desmethyl flucarbazone with a limit of quantitation (LOQ) of 0.01 mgkg for each analyte. 

It is also important to note that matrix-related effects, either signal enhancement or more commonly signal suppression, can have a pronounced effect on quantitative measurements. Based on these observations, the use of isotope-labeled standards is helpful to achieve accurate analytical measurement data on the diastereoisomers. Several methods found in the open literature include use of both 13C-labeled and d18-labeled surrogates as recovery and/or instrument standards [118],... 

The analytical detectability applying a CL method should, in principle, be comparable to that obtained using radioactive labels, without all the disadvantages related to the use of isotopic labeling. In fact, assuming reasonable values for the quantum efficiency of the chemiluminescent reaction (Cl 0.01), for the overall photon collection efficiency of the optical system-CCD camera assembly (T) 0.01%), and for the intensity of the lowest detectable CL signal (about... 

An important group of analytical methods is based on measurements of the change in isotopic ratio when active and non-active isotopes are mixed. In the simplest case, a known amount w1 of labelled analyte of known specific activity at is added to the sample. After isotopic mixing has been established sufficient of the analyte is separated (nor normally 100%) to allow the new specific activity a2 to be measured. Measurements of activity and the amount of the analyte separated are thus required. Subsequently the amount w2 of analyte in the sample may be calculated from equation (10.17). 

The method development process with the multisorbent plate consists of three steps. In step 1, the sorbent chemistry and the pH for loading, washing, and elution are optimized. In step 2, optimization of the percentage organic for wash and elution and the pH of the buffer needed is carried out. Step 3 is validation the method developed from the results of the previous two steps is tested for linearity, limits of detection, quantitation of recovery, and matrix effects using a stable isotope-labeled analyte as an IS. 

A quite reliable method involves the addition of stable isotope-labelled analytes, which exhibit the same chromatographic and ionisation behaviour as unlabelled analogues present in the sample, and which can therefore be distinguished from the latter with the aid of the MS detector separating the different ion masses. However, whereas for many environmental pollutants such as pesticides, pharmaceuticals,... 

It can be concluded that further work is necessary to improve method reproducibility. The lack of reference materials and isotope-labelled standards to control the quality assurance of analytical methods is a... 

Part—VI has been solely devoted to Miscellaneous Assay Methods wherein radioimmunoassay (RIA) (Chapter 32) has been discussed extensively. Various arms of theoretical aspects viz., hapten determinants and purity importance of antigenic determinants and analysis of competitive antibody binding of isotopically labeled compounds. The applications of RIA in pharmaceutical analysis, such as morphine, hydromorphone and hydrocordone in human plasma clonazepam, flurazepam in human plasma chlordiazepoxide in plasma barbiturates, flunisolide in human plasma have been described elaborately. Lastly, the novel applications of RIA-techniques, combined RIA-technique-isotope dilution and stereospecificity have also been included to highlight the importance of RIA in the analytical armamentarium. 

Ionization changes can be efficiently corrected with the use of an isotopically labeled IS, which possesses identical ionization response and fragmentation pattem. Therefore, deuterated IS can be used to correct both the overall method variability (e.g., sample preparation, injection, electrophoretic process, etc.) as well as matrix effects since the amount of suppression from interferents is expected to be similar. However, the total concentration of analyte and IS should be below the saturation of the ionization process. Guidelines to obtain a reproducible CE—MS method were published by Ohnesorge et al. and took into account the use of an isotopically labeled IS. 

Another GC method, isotope dilution GC-MS, involves the addition of an isotopomer of the analyte of interest to the sampling manifold (e.g., see Bandy et al., 1993 and Blomquist et al., 1993). In the case of S02, where the ambient S02 consists mainly of K 0 and 32S, S02 containing the 34S isotope is used. This labeled S02 at mass 66 is used as internal standard and has a number of additional advantages such as minimizing the loss of the analyte in the sampling system (Bandy et al., 1993). The air with the added isotopomer is trapped cryogenically and then sampled into a GC-MS for analysis. 

Reference values of this approach are not different from those for other amino acid analyses. An example of a mass chromatogram, representing the plasma of a PKU patient, is shown in Fig. 2.1.1. When evaluating the results of MS/MS amino acid analyses, one has to reahze that the hquid chromatographic separation is by far less efficient that the AAA separation. For this reason, any amino acid may (partly) coelute with other amino acid(s), which potentially interferes with its mass spectromet-ric behavior. This effect is known as quenching. In order to overcome this as much as possible, stable-isotope-labeled internal standards (as many as possible) should be used. However, this matrix effect of ion suppression is the major pitfall in the MS/MS analysis of amino acids. Consequently, the MS/MS analysis of amino acids cannot be regarded as a reference method, similar to all other amino acid analytical methods. 

Because the characterization of support-bound intermediates is difficult (see below), solid-phase reactions are most conveniently monitored by cleaving the intermediates from the support and analyzing them in solution. Depending on the loading, 5-20 mg of support will usually deliver sufficient material for analysis by HPLC, LC-MS, and NMR, and enable assessment of the outcome of a reaction. Analytical tools that are particularly well suited for the rapid analysis of small samples resulting from solid-phase synthesis include MALDI-TOF MS [3-5], ion-spray MS [6-8], and tandem MS [9]. MALDI-TOF MS can even be used to analyze the product cleaved from a single bead [5], and is therefore well suited to the identification of products synthesized by the mix-and-split method (Section 1.2). The analysis and quantification of small amounts of product can be further facilitated by using supports with two linkers, which enable either release of the desired product or release of the product covalently bound to a dye [10-13], to an isotopic label [11], or to a sensitizer for mass spectrometry [6,14,15] (e.g., product-linker-dye- analytical linker -Pol). 

Wang, S., Cyronak, M., and Yang, E. (2007). Does a stable isotopically labeled internal standard always correct analyte response A matrix effect study on a LC/MS/MS method for the determination of carvedilol enantiomers in human plasma. J. Pharm. Biomed. Anal. 43 701-707. 

Martens-Lobenhoffer et al. [119] used chiral HPLC-atmospheric pressure photoionization tandem mass-spectrometric method for the enantio-selective quantification of omeprazole and its main metabolites in human serum. The method features solid-phase separation, normal phase chiral HPLC separation, and atmospheric pressure photoionization tandem mass spectrometry. The internal standards serve stable isotope labeled omeprazole and 5-hydroxy omeprazole. The HPLC part consists of Agilent 1100 system comprising a binary pump, an autosampler, a thermo-stated column component, and a diode array UV-VIS detector. The enantioselective chromatographic separation took place on a ReproSil Chiral-CA 5 ym 25 cm x 2 mm column, protected by a security guard system, equipped with a 4 mm x 2-mm silica filter insert. The analytes were detected by a Thermo Scientific TSQ Discovery Max triple quadrupole mass spectrometer, equipped with an APPI ion source with a... 

Unfortunately, for the majority of small molecule LC-MS/MS analyses, stable isotope labelled internal standards are not available so far. In such cases, compounds with a very similar molecular structure typically serve as internal standard ( homologues or analogues ). Since the ionization properties are substantially determined by functional groups of a molecule, ionization behaviour may differ significantly—even between compounds with very similar over-all molecular structure. Differential clustering, e.g. with sodium, ammonium or formate ions often present in mobile phases may as well impact the parity of ionization yield between analyte and internal standard. Hence the availability of an appropriate homologue is crucial and critical for the development of reliable LC-MS/MS methods in TDM [51]. 

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