Evaluation and optimization of a HS-SPME-assisted GC-MS/MS method for monitoring nitrosamine impurities in diverse pharmaceuticals.

The probable carcinogenic nitrosamine impurities, such as N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA) and N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), have been detected from various pharmaceuticals in recent years. The sensitive chromatographic methods, including liquid chromatography (LC) and gas chromatography (GC), have been applied for analyzing nitrosamines in the pharmaceutical substrates, such as sartans, ranitidine and metformin. In comparison of LC, the efficacy of GC for analyzing multiple nitrosamines in diverse pharmaceuticals will be limited or attenuated owing to the chemical properties of target analytes or matrix hinderance of pharmaceutical substrates. To extend the applicability of GC analysis for multiple nitrosamines in pharmaceuticals, this study presented a gas chromatograph tandem mass (GC-MS/MS) method for monitoring 14 nitrosamines within 44 pharmaceuticals, whereas the headspace-solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME) sampling mode was introduced. Chromatographic separation was achieved on a DB-heavyWax column (30 m × 0.25 mm; i.d., 0.25 µm), whereas the HS-SPME sampling mode with a 50/30 µm DVB/CAR/PDMS extracting fiber was applied for comparison of the direct injection mode. Meanwhile, the HS-SPME conditions were optimized to evaluate the effects of the parameters on analyzing total nitrosamines in pharmaceuticals by GC-MS/MS. The optimal conditions of HS-SPME were as follows: extracting solution of 90% NaCl, HS incubation time 1 min, SPME adsorbing at 80 â„ƒ for 30 min, and desorbing at 250 â„ƒ for 5 min. The limit of quantification (LOQ) for 14 nitrosamines in pharmaceutical matrices under the optimal conditions was 0.05 µg/g for the optimal HS-SPME, whereas the value was 0.05-0.25 µg/g for direct injection.

Simultaneous LC-MS/MS screening for multiple phenethylamine-type conventional drugs and new psychoactive substances in urine.

New psychoactive substances are being launched in the drug market at a rapidly growing pace. More than 950 new psychoactive substances have been reported to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The development of new psychoactive substance abuse has drawn risks on public health and safety. Phenethylamines, along with other stimulants, accounted for the majority of the new psychoactive substances being reported in the past decade. This study presents a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for the simultaneous screening of 74 conventional and artificial phenethylamines in urine samples. The chromatographic analysis was performed by a direct dilute-and-shoot procedure using a Phenomenex Kinetex® Phenyl-Hexyl column (10 cm × 2.1 mm i.d., 1.7 µm) and two mobile phases (A: 0.1% formic acid aqueous solution with 5 mM ammonium acetate, B: 0.1% formic acid methanolic solution). The mass fragments were collected under the multiple reaction monitoring mode. The linearity range located in 1.0-50.0 ng/mL for quantitative analysis. The limit of detection and lower limit of quantification for 74 phenethylamines were 0.5 ng/mL and 1.0 ng/mL, respectively. The method was validated and further applied to analyze authentic urine samples. Twenty samples were tested positive of seven phenethylamines from 67 samples, whereas the contents detected were 9.8 ng/mL to 147.1 µg/mL with dilution factors of 40 to 20,000 folds.

A LC-MS/MS method for determination of 73 synthetic cathinones and related metabolites in urine.

Synthetic cathinones, which are a group of ß-keto analogs of phenethylamine, have been reported as the most emerging new psychoactive substances in the past decade. The quantity and variety of synthetic cathinones have continued to increase, which poses considerable risks to public health and social security. In this study, an analytical method based on liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LCMS/MS) was established for the simultaneous determination of 73 synthetic cathinones and related metabolites in urine. The chromatographic analysis was performed using a Kinetex® Biphenyl column (10 cm ×2.1 mm, 1.7 µm), applying a gradient mobile phase, comprising 0.1 % formic acid aqueous solution with 5 mM ammonium acetate and 0.1 % formic acid methanolic solution; the entire run time of the analysis was within 8 min. The multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode was employed to collect the monitoring and quantitative ion pairs. Intra-day/inter-day precision and accuracy were less than 10 % for all the studied analytes. The limits of detection and quantification for all the analytes were 0.1-0.5 ng/mL and 0.5-1.0 ng/mL, respectively. The matrix effect was satisfactory for all the analytes, with a deviation lower than 20 %. The present method was further applied to 67 authentic urine samples in which 13 different synthetic cathinones were detected from 32 positive samples. The abuse of poly-synthetic cathinones was examined that up to seven items was detected in one case from authentic samples in this study.

A multi-analyte LC-MS/MS method for screening and quantification of nitrosamines in sartans.

An incident of sartan medicine contamination was notified by Europe in June 2018. The contaminant was identified as a probable carcinogenic nitrosamine and the recalls of sartan medicines were soon made. Since then, more nitrosamine contaminants in sartan medicines were reported. To broaden the applicability and variety in nitrosamine determination, a multi-analyte method is required. In this study, a feasible and sensitive multi-analyte LC-MS/MS method for determination of 12 nitrosamines in sartans was established, where the active pharmaceutical ingredients and final products merchandised in Taiwan were also examined. Chromatographic separation was achieved on an Xselect® HSS T3 column (15 cm × 3 mm i.d., 3.5 µm) with gradient elution using mobile phase A consisting of 0.1% formic acid in water and mobile phase B consisting of 0.1% formic acid in acetonitrile/methanol (2:8). Validation of the proposed method was also carried out. The limit of detection and limit of quantification for 12 nitrosamines were 20 ng/g and 50 ng/g, respectively. The intra-day and inter-day recoveries of nitrosamines were among 80-120% with precision of 20% for most nitrosamines within sartans matrices. The method was successfully established and applied to authentic samples which a total of 98 positive samples containing 5 distinct nitrosamines, including N-nitrosodiethylamine, N-nitrosodimethylamine, N-nitroso-N-methyl-4-aminobutyric acid, N-nitrosomorpholine and N-nitrosopiperidine, were detected from 557 authentic samples.

Enhanced bioconversion rate and released substrate inhibition in (R)-phenylephrine whole-cell bioconversion via partial acetone treatment.

An approach was developed to enhance the efficiency for the bioconversion of 1-(3-hydroxyphenyl)-2-(methyamino)-ethanone to (R)-phenylephrine. The strain Serratia marcescens N10612, giving the benefit of 99% enantiomeric excess in (R)-PE conversion, was used. The fermentation was devised to harvest cells with high hydrophobic prodigiosin content inside the cells. Then, the partial acetone extraction was applied to remove prodigiosin from the cells. The treatment was found to increase the cells conversion rate without loss of the cells NADPH redox system. When using 50% (v/v) acetone for 5min, the processed cells can give a specific conversion rate of 16.03µmol/h/g-cells. As compared the treated cells with cells under the basal medium, the maximum reaction rate (Vmax) increased from 6.69 to 10.27 (µmol/h/g-cells), the dissociation constant (Km) decreased from 0.236 to 0.167mM and the substrate inhibition constant (KSi) increased from 0.073 to 1.521mM. The 20-fold increase in substrate inhibition constant referred to a great release from the substrate inhibition for the use of S. marcescens N10612 in the bioconversion, which would greatly benefit the bioconversion to be industrialized.

Ultrasound-assisted (R)-phenylephrine whole-cell bioconversion by S. marcescens N10612.

The strain Serratia marcescens N10612 is used to perform the bioconversion of 1-(3-hydroxyphenyl)-2-(methyamino)-ethanone (HPMAE) to (R)-phenylephrine ((R)-PE), which is an ephedrine drug substitute. The use of an ultrasound approach is found to improve the efficiency of the (R)-PE bioconversion. The optimization of the (R)-PE bioconversion is carried out by means of statistical experiment design. The optimal conditions obtained are 1.0mM HPMAE, 18.68 g/L glucose and ultrasound power of 120 W, where the predicted specific rate of the (R)-PE bioconversion is 31.46 ± 2.22 (ìmol/h/g-cells) and the experimental specific rate is 33.27 ± 1.46 (ìmol/h/g-cells), which is 3-fold higher than for the operation under ultrasound power of 200 W (11.11 ìmol/h/g-cells) and 4.3-fold higher than for the shaking operation (7.69 ìmol/h/g-cells). The kinetics study of the bioconversion also shows that under the ultrasound operation, the optimal rate (Vmax) of the (R)-PE bioconversion increases from 7.69 to 11.11 (µmol/h/g-cells) and the substrate inhibition constant (KSi) increases from 1.063 mM for the shaking operation to 1.490 mM for ultrasound operation.

Production of D-hydantoinase via surface display and self-cleavage system.

In this study, the cell surface expression system was the first time used to directly produce extracellular enzyme. In the plasmid construction, the truncated ice nucleation protein (INP) was fused with intein (INT) and target protein, D-hydantoinase (DHTase), to form the INP-INT-DHTase gene. The plasmid containing this gene was transformed into Escherichia coli ER2566 cells. The gene construct enables the expression of INP-INT-DHTase fusion protein, which might anchor on cell membrane surface. The induction conditions were studied and optimal conditions were as follows: E. coli ER2566 was incubated at 37°C and 200 rpm till OD600 reached 0.6. Then, 0.05 mM IPTG was added and the induction was conducted at 15°C for 24 h. The cell was harvested and resuspended in the cleavage buffer (50 mM Tris-HCl buffer, pH 6). The cleavage reaction was carried out at 25°C, and 100 rpm for 24 h. The DHTase with an activity of 0.225 U/ml and a purity of 63.2% was obtained via centrifugation. This study demonstrated the feasibility of direct extracellular enzyme production using E. coli via only two steps of centrifugation.