Cobalt is a well-established inducer of hypoxia-like responses, which can cause gene modulation at the hypoxia inducible factor pathway to induce erythropoietin transcription. Cobalt salts are orally active, inexpensive, and easily accessible. It is an attractive blood doping agent for enhancing aerobic performance. Indeed, recent intelligence and investigations have confirmed cobalt was being abused in equine sports. In this paper, population surveys of total cobalt in raceday samples were conducted using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Urinary threshold of 75 ng/mL and plasma threshold of 2 ng/mL could be proposed for the control of cobalt misuse in raceday or in-competition samples. Results from administration trials with cobalt-containing supplements showed that common supplements could elevate urinary and plasma cobalt levels above the proposed thresholds within 24 h of administration. It would therefore be necessary to ban the use of cobalt-containing supplements on raceday as well as on the day before racing in order to implement and enforce the proposed thresholds. Since the abuse with huge quantities of cobalt salts can be done during training while the use of legitimate cobalt-containing supplements are also allowed, different urinary and plasma cobalt thresholds would be required to control cobalt abuse in non-raceday or out-of-competition samples. This could be achieved by setting the thresholds above the maximum urinary and plasma cobalt concentrations observed or anticipated from the normal use of legitimate cobalt-containing supplements. Urinary threshold of 2000 ng/mL and plasma threshold of 10 ng/mL were thus proposed for the control of cobalt abuse in non-raceday or out-of-competition samples.

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Chiral recognition of 19 common amino acids was achieved by investigating the collision-induced dissociation spectra of protonated trimers that were formed from the electrospray ionization of amino acids in the presence of one of the following chiral selectors: L- or D-N-tert-butoxycarbonylphenylalanine, L- or D-N-tert-butoxycarbonylproline, and L- or D-N-tert-butoxycarbonyl-O-benzylserine. The protonated trimers were dissociated to protonated dimers, and the intensity ratios of the protonated dimer (product ion) to the protonated trimer (precursor ion), i.e., the observed dissociation efficiency, was found to be strongly dependent on the chirality of the amino acids with respect to that of the chiral selectors. The results showed that the chirality of all 19 common amino acids can be definitely differentiated. The method was demonstrated as rapid, sensitive, precise, robust, and requiring no reference standards and only minimal sample preparation. The chirality of all three amino acids in a mixture was determined without prior separation of the amino acids, consuming only 70 pmol of sample and requiring only approximately 14 min of mass spectrometric measurements. A cyclodipeptide with unknown chirality was determined to be cyclo-(L-Pro-L-Leu) by acid hydrolysis followed by the present method, and the results were consistent with the physiochemical properties and NMR data of the compound. This study suggested that ESI-MS/MS can be a promising approach for the chiral recognition of other compounds.

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The determination of enantiomeric excess (ee) of amino acids was achieved by investigating the collision-induced dissociation spectra of protonated trimers that were formed by electrospray ionization of amino acids in the presence of one of the following chiral selectors: L- or D-N-tert-butoxycarbonylphenylalanine, L- or D-N-tert-butoxycarbonylproline, and L- or D-N-tert-butoxycarbonyl-O-benzylserine. The protonated trimers were dissociated to form protonated dimers, and the observed dissociation efficiency r (i.e., the intensity ratio of protonated dimers to protonated trimers) for an enantiomeric mixture was found to be related to its ee value by the following equation: r = a + b/(c + ee), where a, b, and c were constants. A linear calibration plot was obtained by plotting r versus 1/(c + ee), where c was calculated with the MATLAB software, or by plotting 1/(r - r0) versus 1/ee, where r0 was the r value for the racemic mixture. The latter "two-reciprocal" method was more convenient for application. Another practical method for ee determination was the "three-point" method, whereby the ee of an unknown sample with a measured r value could be derived from the equation ee = 100¿1/(rL - r0) - 1/(rD - r0)¿/¿2/(r - r0) - 1/(rL - r0) - 1/(rD - r0)¿, with rL and rD being the r values for the enantiomerically pure L- and D-forms of the sample, respectively. A calibration plot was not required. The ee determination was achieved with acceptable precision even for the worst case of acceptable chiral recognition with a particular chiral selector, suggesting that the ee determination of all 19 common amino acids could be achieved by the present method. The ee of a histidine sample was determined both by the two-reciprocal method, giving an error of 0.2% ee (1.1% relative error) and consuming only approximately 5.3 nmol of sample, and by the three-point method, giving an error of 0.4% ee and consuming only approximately 2.3 nmol of sample. In the latter case, it took 27 min for the mass spectrometric measurements of the three calibration standards and an additional 9 min for the unknown sample. The direct ee determination of more than one amino acid in a mixture was also demonstrated in the study.

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