Easily Operable Quantification Method of 21 Plant-Derived Alkaloids in Human Serum by Automatic Sample Preparation and Liquid Chromatography–Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

In this study, we developed an easily operable quantification method for 21 plant-derived alkaloids in human serum by automatic sample preparation and liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry. We designed to perform parallel sample preparation by a developed apparatus, which increased sample throughput. We conducted an automatic sample preparation through de-proteinization with 0.1% formic acid in methanol and achieved recovery rates of 89–107% (2.0–14% RSD) for all targeted analytes, demonstrating its high repeatability. The method validation results were satisfactory as follows: the linearity ( r 2 ) of each calibration curve ranged from 0.978 to 1.000; the inter- and intra-day accuracies were 89.0–125% and 82.1–110%, respectively; the inter- and intra-day precisions were below 13% and 10%, respectively. Additionally, the lower limits of detection and quantification were 0.0044–0.047 and 0.013–0.14 ng/mL, respectively. Finally, the developed method was applied to pseudo-protoveratrine A poisoning serum and pseudo-colchicine poisoning serum, which were prepared by diluting acute-poisoning mice serum with human serum. Our method successfully quantitated protoveratrine A (0.15–0.25 ng/mL) and colchicine (4.8–6.0 ng/mL). Thus, our method is essential for prompt clinical treatment and critical care on patient in acute intoxication cases caused by plant-derived alkaloids. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10337-022-04212-5.

Development of two fully automated quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe pretreatment methods for the extraction of psychotropic drugs from whole blood samples

“…Automation of sample pretreatment provides labor-and time-saving methodologies that minimize the risks of human error, contamination, and exposure to potentially hazardous samples. Several research groups have developed automated drug-extraction methodologies based on deproteination, LLE, SPE, and SLE from biological samples [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. ATLAS-LEXT (Shimadzu Engineering Inc.) is a fully automated benchtop sample pretreatment system that was originally manufactured for LLE (Figure 1).…”

“…Tsuchihashi et al constructed an automated LLE method for the extraction of stimulants from urine using a predecessor of ATLAS-LEXT [22]. Recently, Kawamura et al developed an automated SLE method for the extraction of psychotropic drugs from blood samples [23] and Taniguchi et al developed an automated deproteination method for the extraction of plant toxins from serum samples [24]; both approaches are based on the ATLAS-LEXT system with modified program settings and optimized extraction conditions. Accordingly, we envisaged that such a system would be applicable to automated QuEChERS extraction.…”