“…Chemical cleavage of sulfated steroid metabolites also results in the hydrolysis of other conjugates, and commercially available sulfatase enzymes, which enzymatically cleave these sulfated compounds, also possess glucuronidase activity, making it difficult to distinguish between steroid glucuronides and sulfated steroids [ 6 , 14 ]. In contrast, liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) and LC–tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) exhibit excellent ionization properties via electrospray ionization and do not require derivatization of compounds, and therefore the specific fragmentation patterns of these compounds allow selective and sensitive analysis by MS/MS [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 6 , 7 , 10 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ].…”