Gas Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry for Biomarkers of Alcohol Abuse in Human Hair

Abstract

We present the development of a new, faster analytical method for the determination of fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEEs) in human hair to detect potential alcohol abuse. FAEEs have been established as metabolites of ethanol consumption in humans and are embedded in the hair follicles during hair growth. The developed method has a total analysis time-including washing, extraction, concentration, separation, and detection-of less than 1 hour. Commonly used extraction procedures in the literature for these biomarkers are typically 15 hours. Analysis is performed using gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS) with a GC separation time of less than 9 minutes. Using chemical ionization, mass spectrometric detection consists of selected reaction monitoring, which is widely considered to be one of the most selective and sensitive forms of mass spectrometric detection. Employing selected reaction monitoring helps to reduce interferences from the hair matrix, thereby making the method more selective for these biomarkers of interest. Limits of detection for each FAEE range from 0.002 to 0.030 ng/mg in hair. By using this faster extraction method, this research shows that this method could potentially be used to distinguish whether a person is a heavy drinker, moderate drinker, or nondrinker. The ability to rapidly analyze hair samples can be applied to a number of different areas, such as neonatal screening, parole violations, contributing factors in the cause of death, and any other application requiring the establishment of chronic versus acute alcohol abuse.

Determination of fatty acid ethyl esters in hair by GC–MS and application in a population of cocaine users

“…Several different molecules formed from ethanol and fatty acids, phospholipids, or lipoproteins were identified and attributed to FAEE group, but only four of them were found to be correlated with alcohol use when retrieved in the keratinic matrices (ethyl myristate, ethyl palmitate, ethyl oleate, and ethyl stearate) [4,5]. Nearly all methods reported by the literature identify these analytes by head space-solid phase microextraction-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS SPME GC-MS) [4][5][6][7][8][9] or, more recently, by GC-tandem mass spectrometry [10]. Both techniques performed satisfactorily and, on the basis of the analytical results a cut-off of 0.5 ng/mg for the sum of the 4 analytes was found to best reflect a chronic excessive alcohol consumption.…”

Alcohol Biomarkers in Hair

“…Alternatively, two washings with methanol (2 mL for about 2 min each) were described [117,118] but cannot be recommended because the swelling effect on hair and the lower solubility of external lipids in this polar solvent. According to the consensuses, generally the proximal hair segment 0À3 or 0À6 cm is analyzed if available.…”

“…[118] is unsuitable as internal standard because of its presence in sebum and hair after alcohol consumption. Ethyl heptadecanoate which is recommended in Ref.…”

Determination of biomarkers of tobacco smoke exposure in oral fluid using solid-phase extraction and gas chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry

“…This assumes even more relevance when OF is tested, since the analytes' concentrations are usually low in this specimen [39]. This powerful tool has already been used in bioanalysis, namely in the detection of biomarkers of alcohol consumption [40], in vivo lipid peroxidation [41] or the detection of the metabolite of 9 -tetrahydrocannabinol (carboxy-THC) in hair samples at concentrations in the range of pg/mg [42]. This paper describes a new and sensitive method for the quantitative analysis of NIC and two of its major metabolites (COT and OH-COT) in oral fluid samples by means of solid-phase extraction and GC-MS/MS.…”