A four-channel multiplexed electrospray interface on a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer was evaluated for the simultaneous validation of LC/MS/MS methods for the quantitation of loratadine and its metabolite, descarboethoxyloratadine, in four different biological matrixes. The assays were performed in rat, rabbit, mouse, and dog plasma from 1 to 1000 ng/mL using 96-well solid-phase extraction for sample preparation. The limit of quantitation of 1 ng/mL corresponded to 5.56 pg of each analyte injected on-column. For the drug, quality control samples (n = 6 at four concentrations) had precision ranging from 0.967 to 16.0% and accuracy ranging from -8.44 to 10.5% across all four species. For the metabolite, the precision ranged from 0.684 to 11.0% and the accuracy was between 6.36 and -9.06%. Intersprayer cross talk for the multiplexed electrospray ion source was evaluated as a function of analyte concentration and was less than 0.08% at concentrations as high as 1000 ng/mL. These results demonstrate the feasibility of using parallel analysis to reduce the time required for method validation and to increase sample throughput in drug development studies.

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Recent years have seen increasing usage of large particle size stationary phases and ultra‐high flow rate liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS) for rapid determination of pharmaceuticals in plasma without prior sample preparation. This lack of sample preparation prior to analysis, together with the extremely high throughput of the chromatography, makes the technique extremely attractive to the bioanalyst. Further, the introduction of multiple sprayer interfaces to mass spectrometers provides the potential for even higher throughput. In this paper, we present parallel ultra‐high flow rate liquid chromatography using four columns in parallel and a four‐way multiple sprayer interface to the mass spectrometer. We have applied this on both the narrow‐bore and capillary scale. This technique enables the quantification of drugs from four plasma samples simultaneously, at nanogram per millilitre concentrations, from small aliquots of plasma without sample preparation and with throughputs of up to 120 samples per hour. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An investigation into the use of high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS) coupled to electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) for the differentiation of co-populated protein conformers has been conducted on the amyloidogenic protein beta(2)-microglobulin (beta(2)m). Accumulation of beta(2)m in vivo can result in the deposition of insoluble fibrils whose formation is thought to originate from partially folded protein conformers; hence, the folding properties of beta(2)m are of significant interest. We have analysed beta(2)m using ESI-FAIMS-MS under a range of pH conditions and have studied the effect of the ion mobility spectrometry parameters on the behaviour of the various protein conformers. The data show that different protein conformers can be detected and analysed by ESI-FAIMS-MS, the results being consistent with observations of pH denaturation obtained using complementary biophysical techniques. A variant of beta(2)m with different folding characteristics has been analysed for comparison, and the distinctions observed in the data sets for the two proteins are consistent with their folding behaviour. ESI-FAIMS-MS offers significant opportunities for the study of the conformational properties of proteins and thus may present valuable insights into the roles that different conformers play in diseases related to protein folding.

A quantitative Ultra Performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (UPL/MS/MS) protocol was developed for a five-compound mixture in rat plasma. A similar high-performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC/MS/MS) quantification protocol was developed for comparison purposes. Among the five test compounds, three preferred positive electrospray ionization (ESI) and two preferred negative ESI. As a result, both UPLC/MS/MS and HPLC/MS/MS analyses were performed by having the mass spectrometer collecting ESI multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) data in both positive and negative ion modes during a single injection. Peak widths for most standards were 4.8 s for the HPLC analysis and 2.4 s for the UPLC analysis. There were 17 to 20 data points obtained for each of the LC peaks. Compared with the HPLC/MS/MS method, the UPLC/MS/MS method offered 3-fold decrease in retention time, up to 10-fold increase in detected peak height, with 2-fold decrease in peak width. Limits of quantification (LOQs) for both HPLC and UPLC methods were evaluated. For UPLC/MS/MS analysis, a linear range up to four orders of magnitude was obtained with r2 values ranging from 0.991 to 0.998. The LOQs for the five analytes ranged from 0.08 to 9.85 ng/mL. Three levels of quality control (QC) samples were analyzed. For the UPLC/MS/MS protocol, the percent relative standard deviation (RSD%) for low QC (2 ng/mL) ranged from 3.42 to 8.67% (N = 18). The carryover of the UPLC/MS/MS protocol was negligible and the robustness of the UPLC/MS/MS system was evaluated with up to 963 QC injections.