Clinical Applications of Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS) for Metabolites, Toxicology and Therapeutic Drug Analysis

Abstract

As a potent quantitative and qualitative analytical technique, LC-MS/MS is useful in many fields, including toxicology, endocrinology, paediatrics, microbiology, therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM), and the new field of proteomics. It is also possible to use LC-MS/MS to analyse biological materials, such as blood and urine. The recent founding of the Mass Spectrometry and Separation Sciences Division of the AACC and the increasing number of LC-MS/MS papers and conferences demonstrate a growing interest in the clinical use of mass spectrometry. Analysing complex combinations is the basic idea behind tandem mass spectrometry, which involves connecting several mass spectrometers in a chain.

This method employs a collision cell sandwiched between two sequentially organised mass filters. You can use the filters in either a static or scanning mode to choose a specific mass-to-charge (m/z) ratio or m/z range. Precursor ions, which are bigger, smash with gas molecules in the collision cell, causing them to split into product ions, which are smaller. One of several possible scan modes for a tandem mass spectrometer is determined by the therapeutic application. Toxicology is an interdisciplinary science that seeks to clarify the quantitative and qualitative connections between poisonous substances and the physiological and behavioural impacts they have on living organisms. There are a number of important and prominent aspects of toxicology, including the study of poisons' mechanisms of action and the creation of treatments and therapies for the associated harmful effects. As a result of these efforts, mass spectrometry (MS), an analytical technology with a wide variety of applications, has developed into a strong tool that is applied in the toxicological analysis of medications, poisons, and the metabolites of both. Even now, MS finds use in every subfield of toxicology, from environmental toxicology and forensic toxicology to clinical toxicology. Nowadays, toxicology labs rely on mass spectrometry and its hyphenated applications, which include GC-MS, LC-MS, ICP-MS, and tandem mass spectrometry / MS and MSn. Despite the widespread use of many analytical tools in these domains, this remains the case. The hyphenated MS technology and their toxicological applications will be the focus of this review.