Investigating the effect of substitution location on fentanyl analog identification for methyl-substituted fentanyl analogs using GC-EI-MS

Pollard, Alexis; Davidson, J. Tyler

doi:10.1016/j.forc.2023.100534

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…11 Since then, numerous studies have focused on characterizing fragmentation pathways of fentanyl and its many analogues with tandem MS, [12][13][14][15][16] including by both electrospray ionization (ESI) [17][18][19][20][21] and electron ionization (EI). [22][23][24][25][26] This has also led to the development of highresolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) methods becoming more routinely implemented for identification of fentanyl analogues and other new psychoactive substances (NPS), 27,28 along with the development of software tools to aid in screening. 29,30 Recently, ion mobility and mass spectrometry (IM-MS) have been coupled as a more comprehensive method for drug detection and quantification.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Wichitnithad et al first investigated the tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) pattern of fentanyl, revealing isobaric fragments that could complicate its identification 11 . Since then, numerous studies have focused on characterizing fragmentation pathways of fentanyl and its many analogues with tandem MS, 12–16 including by both electrospray ionization (ESI) 17–21 and electron ionization (EI) 22–26 . This has also led to the development of high‐resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) methods becoming more routinely implemented for identification of fentanyl analogues and other new psychoactive substances (NPS), 27,28 along with the development of software tools to aid in screening 29,30 …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dependency of fentanyl analogue protomer ratios on solvent conditions as measured by ion mobility‐mass spectrometry

Johnson,

Sabatini,

Aderorho

et al. 2024

J Mass Spectrom

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Recently, our group has shown that fentanyl and many of its analogues form prototropic isomers (“protomers”) during electrospray ionization. These different protomers can be resolved using ion mobility spectrometry and annotated using mobility‐aligned tandem mass spectrometry fragmentation. However, their formation and the extent to which experimental variables contribute to their relative ratio remain poorly understood. In the present study, we systematically investigated the effects of mixtures of common chromatographic solvents (water, methanol, and acetonitrile) and pH on the ratio of previously observed protomers for 23 fentanyl analogues. Interestingly, these ratios (N‐piperidine protonation vs. secondary amine/O = protonation) decreased significantly for many analogues (e.g., despropionyl ortho‐, meta‐, and para‐methyl fentanyl), increased significantly for others (e.g., cis‐isofentanyl), and remained relatively constant for the others as solvent conditions changed from 100% organic solvent (methanol or acetonitrile) to 100% water. Interestingly, pH also had significant effects on this ratio, causing the change in ratio to switch in many cases. Lastly, increasing conditions to pH ≥ 4.0 also prompted the appearance of new mobility peaks for ortho‐ and para‐methyl acetyl fentanyl, where all previous studies had only showed one single distribution. Because these ratios have promise to be used qualitatively for identification of these (and emerging) fentanyl analogues, understanding how various conditions (i.e., mobile phase selection and/or chromatographic gradient) affect their ratios is critically important to the development of advanced ion mobility and mass spectrometry methodologies to identify fentanyl analogues.

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