Department of Forensic Medicine, Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, Guizhou 550004, PR China.
Department of Forensic Medicine, Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, Guizhou 550004, PR China.
Leg Med (Tokyo). 2023 Jul;63:102267. doi: 10.1016/j.legalmed.2023.102267. Epub 2023 May 2.
Toxic alkaloids are typically found in herbal medicines and have strong pharmacological effects and a broad therapeutic spectrum. On the other hand, toxic alkaloids exert toxicological activities in vivo; as such they have a narrow therapeutic window and can induce poisoning due to incorrect dose or misuse. In this view, there is an urgent need to develop a rapid and sensitive assay to detect these toxic alkaloids. This study developed a method for determining five common toxic alkaloids in blood, including brucine, strychnine, aconitine, mesaconitine, and hypaconitine using ultra-high liquid chromatography-tandem quadrupole/linear ion trap mass spectrometry (QTRAP UPLC-MS/MS). The analytes in this investigation were extracted with ether and detected using multiple reaction monitoring (MRM)-information-dependent acquisition (IDA)-enhanced product ion (EPI) scanning modes. SKF served as the internal standard (IS). The approach demonstrated excellent linearity, with a correlation coefficient (R) > 0.9964, and satisfactory sensitivity, with the limit of detection (LOD) of 0.31 ∼ 3.26 ng/mL and a limit of quantification (LOQ) of 1.13 ∼ 11.52 ng/mL. The extraction recovery (ER) was 78.8 ∼ 116.2%, the matrix effect (ME) was -12.3 ∼ 21.2%, and the method accuracy was 0.8 ∼ 12.8%. In addition, the intra-day precision and the inter-day precision (RSD) were 0.7% ∼ 7.4% and 0.4% ∼ 13.5%, respectively. The developed approach is sensitive and efficient, and offer significant application prospect in clinical monitoring and forensic detection of poisoning.
有毒生物碱通常存在于草药中，具有很强的药理作用和广泛的治疗谱。另一方面，有毒生物碱在体内发挥毒理学活性；因此，它们的治疗窗很窄，如果剂量不正确或使用不当，可能会导致中毒。在这种情况下，迫切需要开发一种快速灵敏的检测方法来检测这些有毒生物碱。本研究建立了一种采用超高效液相色谱-串联四极杆/线性离子阱质谱（QTRAP UPLC-MS/MS）测定血液中 5 种常见有毒生物碱的方法，包括马钱子碱、士的宁、乌头碱、次乌头碱和新乌头碱。本研究采用乙醚提取分析物，采用多反应监测（MRM）-信息依赖性采集（IDA）-增强子离子（EPI）扫描模式进行检测。SKF 作为内标（IS）。该方法具有良好的线性，相关系数（R）>0.9964，且灵敏度高，检测限（LOD）为 0.313.26ng/mL，定量限（LOQ）为 1.1311.52ng/mL。提取回收率（ER）为 78.8%116.2%，基质效应（ME）为-12.3%21.2%，方法准确度为 0.8%12.8%。此外，日内精密度和日间精密度（RSD）分别为 0.7%7.4%和 0.4%~13.5%。所建立的方法灵敏、高效，在临床中毒监测和法医毒物检测中具有广阔的应用前景。
