A CE-ICP-MS/MS method for the determination of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles under simulated physiological conditions

Abstract

Over the past few years, superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) have attracted much attention due to their medicinally attractive properties and their possible application in cancer diagnosis and therapy. However, there is still a lack of appropriate methods to enable quantitative monitoring of the particle changes in a physiological environment, which could be beneficial for evaluating their in vitro and in vivo behavior. For this reason, the main goal of this study was the development of a novel capillary electrophoresis-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (CE-ICP-MS/MS) method for the determination of SPIONs suitable for the future examination of their changes upon incubation with proteins under simulated physiological conditions. The type and flow rate of the collision/reaction gas were chosen with the aim of simultaneous monitoring of Fe and S. The type and concentration of the background electrolyte, applied voltage, and sample loading were optimized to obtain SPION signals of the highest intensity and minimum half-width of the peak. Analytical parameters were at a satisfactory level: reproducibility (intra- and inter-day) of migration times and peak areas (presented as RSD) in the range of 0.23–4.98%, recovery: 96.7% and 93.3%, the limit of detection (for monitoring 56Fe16O+ by mass-shift approach) 54 ng mL−1 Fe (0.97 μM) and 101 ng mL−1 Fe (1.82 μM) for SPIONs with carboxyl and amino terminal groups, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported use of CE-ICP-MS/MS for the quantification of SPIONs and monitoring of interactions with proteins.

Trends and Advances in Inductively Coupled Plasma Tandem Quadruple Mass Spectrometry (ICP-QMS/QMS) With Reaction Cell

“…In both modes, only the ions with an m/z value equal to m1 can pass through the first quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS1) and enter the reaction cell. All other ions with an m/z value different from m1, e.g., 40 Ar + , cannot pass through QMS1 and cannot arrive at the reaction cell. As a result, the ion species entering the reaction cell are greatly simplified and the unwanted reactions in the reaction cell are effectively suppressed.…”

“…On the other hand, 40 Ar 16 O + changes to 40 Ar and 1 H2 16 O + (m/z ≠ m2) after reacting with the cell gas and cannot pass through QMS2 to arrive at the detector. It is to be noted that there may be other product ions/atoms in addition to 40 Ar and 1 H2 16 O + (m/z ≠ m2), e.g., 40 Ar + and 1 H2 16 O, which have m/z values different from m2 and, therefore, also cannot pass through QMS2.…”

“…Research fields and objectives. The research fields of the above references covered biology, 1-15 energy, 16 environment, 9,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] food/medical, 10-12,25-27,33-40 geology, 28,41-47 material, [48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60] and radionulide, 4,[22][23][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71] respectively. In addition to these conventional elemental analysis topics, a study on the gas phase catalytic reaction has also been reported by using the reaction cell of ICP-QMS/QMS as the in-situ reaction field.…”

“…However, one of the obstacles for the application of ICP-MS is spectral interference due to isobaric ions (e.g., 40 Ar + interference with 40 Ca + ), polyatomic ions (e.g., 40 Ar 16 O + interference with 56 Fe + ), or multiply charged ions (e.g., 138 Ba 2+ interference with 69 Ga + ). A straightforward approach for separating spectral interference from an element of interest is double focusing high resolution (HR) ICP-MS, which is also known as sector field (SF) ICP-MS (or ICP-SF-MS) or HR-ICP-MS.…”

Nanoparticles in analytical laser and plasma spectroscopy – a review of recent developments in methodology and applications

“…monitoring of the speciation changes of gold-containing nanomaterials in cells). Among others, it has been employed to the study of Au NPs in cytosol, 430 interaction of superparamagnetic iron oxide NPs with proteins, 431 Au NPs and their protein conjugates, 432 Se NPs in human plasma 433 and Ag NPs in complex media (antibiotic and antiseptic liquids, wastewater, etc.). 434 Field-ow fractionation (FFF) separates NPs according to their hydrodynamic diameter and can be used in a range of ca.…”