Quantitative determination of taxine B in body fluids by LC–MS–MS

Abstract

A new specific and sensitive LC-MS-MS method for the detection of taxine B and isotaxine B, the main toxic pseudo-alkaloids from yew (Taxus sp.), in biological samples (blood, urine, gastric content) was developed. Biological samples were prepared for LC-MS-MS by means of solid-phase extraction (SPE) procedure and yielded a recovery of 86%. Chromatographic separation was achieved using an RP(18) column. Detection of taxine B and isotaxine B was performed using multiple reaction monitoring with m/z 584.2 as precursor ion, i.e. [M+H](+), of both isomers and m/z 194.3 and m/z 107.1 as product ions after collision-induced dissociation. Docetaxel was applied as internal standard. The method was fully validated for the analysis of blood samples. Linearity was proven in the range from 0.1-500 ng/g. The limit of detection and the limit of quantitation are 0.4 and 2 ng/g, respectively. The method was applied to the determination of taxine B and isotaxine B in four fatal cases (two humans, two horses) with suspected yew intoxication. Blood levels were 105, 168, 174 and 212 ng/g.

Aconitine involvement in an unusual homicide case

“…In a more elaborate toxicological analysis, 5 years after the event, aconitine was detected in the urine (810 ng/ml), in the liver (6.5 ng/g) and in the kidneys (1.3 ng/g) by means of LC-MS-MS. The value of LC-MS-MS as an important tool to diagnose intoxications with plant material has recently been proven, e.g., in a case of oleander poisoning [31] and to demonstrate taxine B [18]. According to the available literature data, aconitine alkaloids have a relatively short half-life [28,41].…”

A comparative study of five fatal cases of Taxus poisoning

“…A lot of fatal intoxications in man [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] and livestock [17][18][19][20] have been reported, previously. However, toxicological data from biological materials have seldom been published [1,[13][14][15].…”

“…Many methods for the analysis of the manifold Taxus ingredients have been described: immunoassay [23][24][25], thin-layer chromatography [15,26,27], gas chromatography (GC) [10], and GC/mass spectroscopy (MS) [1,15,18,28], as well as high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) combined with UV [15,25,[29][30][31][32][33][34] and MS [13,14,17,35,36]. However, most of the papers deal with the detection of extracts of Taxus spp, whereas analytical procedures of forensic relevance were seldom reported.…”

Suicidal poisoning with mercaptodimethur–morphological findings and toxicological analysis

“…Lethal poisonings by pharmaceutical drugs [9] and illicit drugs [4] seem to have increased. However, fatal poisonings with plant toxins are relatively rare [5,11], and intoxications with plant protecting agents have even decreased [13].…”