Quantitative profiling of phosphatidylethanol molecular species in human blood by liquid chromatography high resolution mass spectrometry

Quantification of phosphatidylethanol 16:0/18:1, 18:1/18:1, and 16:0/16:0 in venous blood and venous and capillary dried blood spots from patients in alcohol withdrawal and control volunteers

“…Although blood analysis from heavy drinkers shows inter-individual variations of the distribution of the different PEths [6], the predominant species in blood after alcohol consumption are PEth 16:0/18:1 (30-46%) and PEth 16:0/18:2 (16-28%) [5][6][7][8][9]. Other PEths detected are PEth 18:1/18:1 and PEth 18:0/18:2 (identical molecular masses), together accounting for about 11-12% of total PEths [6,7] while PEth 16:0/16:0 accounts for about 5% [6]. The half-life of PEths in whole blood was calculated to be 4.0 ± 0.7 days [3].…”

“…The most used extraction technique is a liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) with hexane [5][6][7][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] (or heptane [8]) after stepwise addition of blood to isopropanol and the internal standard (IS) solution. Some methods added water [6], borate buffer pH 9 [5] or sodium acetate buffer pH 5 [15] to dilute the blood. Some publications reported other types of sample preparation, such as protein precipitation with methanol [18] or protein precipitation followed by an online-solid phase extraction [19].…”

Retrospective assessment of prenatal alcohol exposure by detection of phosphatidylethanol in stored dried blood spot cards: An objective method for determining prevalence rates of alcohol consumption during pregnancy

“…A number of studies have examined the use of PEth as a sensitive and specific marker of heavy episodic drinking, with some evidence for the correlation between alcohol intake and concentration of PEth in blood (Aradottir et al, 2006;Nalesso et al, 2011;Stewart, Law, Randall, & Newman, 2010;Wurst et al, 2010). A recent study by Stewart et al (2010) using a more sensitive liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry assay found that PEth was also a sensitive indicator of moderate to heavy alcohol consumption, with PEth being detectable in 93% of subjects consuming an average of two or more drinks per day.…”

Toxicological Markers of Chronic Alcohol Abuse

“…Up to 48 homologues of this group have been identified by LC-MS/MS and differ by the fatty acid substituents R 1 -CO and R 2 -CO. The (16:0/18:1) and (16:0/18:2) forms occur with highest concentration and are also found in the blood of social drinkers (Gnann et al 2010;Nalesso et al 2011). Until now, PhEt has not been detected in window of hair.…”