Determination of corticosterone in rat and mouse plasma by gas chromatography-selected ion monitoring mass spectrometry

Electrooxidation and Development of a Highly Sensitive Electrochemical Probe for Trace Determination of the Steroid 11-Desoxycorticosterone Drug Residues in Water

Anabolic-androgenic steroids (AASs), a class of compounds frequently misused by competitors and unfortunately by the general population, have lately attracted international attention. Thus, extraordinary demands for developing low cost, precise, rapid, and facile protocols for detection and/or determination of AAS have arisen. Hence, the current strategy explores for the first time the redox features of 21-hydroxypregn-4-ene-3, 20-dione, namely, 11-desoxycorticosterone (DCS) AA drug steroid at a glassy-carbon electrode (GCE) in a wide pH range (pH 2.0–10.0) by adsorptive differential pulse-anodic stripping voltammetry (DP- ASV) and cyclic voltammetry (CV). At pH 2, DP-ASV and CV at the optimized pH 2–3 displayed an irreversible anodic peak at 0.4 V versus Ag/AgCl electrode. The dependency of the anodic peak current of the CV at 0.4 V at various concentrations and scan rate of the DCS drug was characteristic of an electrode-coupled electron transfer of EE type mechanism. At the optimized parameters, the proposed strategy allowed quantification of DCS in the concentration range 2.5 -13.19 nM (0.83-4.36 ng mL−1) with satisfactory limits of detection (LOD) and quantization (LOQ) of 9.3 × 10−1 nM (3.1 × 10−1 ng mL−1) and 3.1 nM (1.02 ng mL−1), respectively. A relative standard deviation (RSD) of ±3.93% (n = 5) at 4.0 ng mL−1 DCS was achieved. The established probe was fruitfully employed and validated for trace determination of DCS residues in environmental water. The interference of several common diverse species on DCS sensing was insignificant revealing good selectivity. The established probe exhibited good sensitivity, selectivity, precision, and accuracy, short analytical time, and low cost compared with the reported methods, for DCS determination.

Impact of broiler breeder growth trajectory on plasma corticosterone concentration: a comparison of analytical methods

Blood concentration of corticosterone (CORT) is a measure of welfare in feed restricted broiler breeders. The RIA and ELISA have been routinely used for measuring CORT in blood, excreta, and feather. Due to the presence of some confounding factors in the aforementioned colorimetric enzyme reaction methods, some methodological difficulties have been attributed to those assays. The correlation between broiler breeder plasma CORT concentrations, measured using ELISA and a novel liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method, was the focus of the current study. A total of 36 broiler breeder pullets were used, of which 30 were randomly assigned to one of 10 unique growth trajectories, and 6 were assigned to an unrestricted group. We designed the growth trajectories using a 3-phase Gompertz growth model with 10 levels of BW gain in the prepubertal and pubertal growth phases, ranging from the breeder-recommended target BW (CON) to 22.5% higher (CON+22.5%), in 2.5% increments. The BW trajectories were applied to each individual bird using a precision feeding (PF) system, which collected BW and feed intake data. The birds were classified based on age at first egg (AFE), and 12 birds each having the highest and lowest AFE was selected for the CORT study. Then median photostimulation BW of the candidate birds was used to define the upper (heavy BW) and lower (standard BW) extremes, and plasma CORT levels were evaluated by ELISA and LC-MS/MS methods from their blood collected at 18, 20, 22, 24, and 26 wk of age. Concentrations of plasma CORT measured using ELISA method were highly correlated (r = 0.95; P < 0.001) with values measured using LC-MS/MS method, validating interchangeably usage of both methods to measure plasma CORT in broiler breeders. Plasma CORT levels were not affected by photostimulation BW or breeders' age, indicating same welfare status between the precision fed high and low BW groups.

Determination of adrenal steroids by microfluidic chip using micellar electrokinetic chromatography

This paper describes a sensitive and convenient method to separate progesterone, 17alpha-hydroxy progesterone, cortexolone, hydrocortisone and cortisone, all of which are steroids and have similar structures, using microfluidic chip-based technology with UV detection at 252 nm. We successfully obtained high-speed separation of the five steroids within 70 s in optimized microfluidic controls and micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) separation conditions. Fairly good linearity with correlation coefficient of over 0.98 from 10 or 20 to 100 mg/l steroid chemicals was obtained. The limits of detection obtained at a signal to noise ratio of 3 were from 3.89 to 7.80 mg/l. The values of the relative standard deviation (RSD) were 0.98-1.34% for repetitive injection (n = 12) and the intraday and interday RSDs were below 6%. The highly stable response reflected the feasibility of this method.

Steroid profiling in brain and plasma of male and pseudopregnant female rats after traumatic brain injury: analysis by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry

Steroids in brain arise from the peripheral endocrine glands and local synthesis. In traumatic brain injury (TBI), the endogenous circulating hormones at the time of injury are important for neuroprotection. In particular, pseudopregnant females recover better than males from TBI. We investigated the effect of pseudopregnancy and TBI on steroid levels in plasma and in three brain regions (within, adjacent, and distal to the lesion site), 6 and 24 h after prefrontal cortex injury. The following steroids were analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry: pregnenolone, progesterone, 5alpha-dihydroprogesterone, 3alpha,5alpha-tetrahydroprogesterone, 3beta,5alpha-tetrahydroprogesterone, dehydroepiandrosterone, Delta(4)-androstenedione, testosterone, 5alpha-dihydrotestosterone, 3alpha,5alpha-tetrahydrotestosterone, 3beta,5alpha-tetrahydrotestosterone, and 17beta-estradiol. Corticosterone was assayed in plasma to account for stress in the rats. We found different steroid profiles in brain and plasma of male and pseudopregnant female rats and specific profile changes after TBI. In sham-operated pseudopregnant females, much higher levels of progesterone, 5alpha-dihydroprogesterone, 3alpha,5alpha-tetrahydroprogesterone, and 3beta,5alpha-tetrahydroprogesterone were measured in both brain and plasma, compared with sham-operated males. Plasma levels of corticosterone were high in all groups, indicating that the surgeries induced acute stress. Six hours after TBI, the levels of pregnenolone, progesterone, and 5alpha-dihydroprogesterone increased, and those of testosterone decreased in male brain, whereas levels of 5alpha-dihydroprogesterone and 3beta,5alpha-tetrahydroprogesterone increased in brain of pseudopregnant female rats. Plasma levels of 5alpha-dihydroprogesterone did not change after TBI, suggesting a local activation of the 5alpha-reduction pathway of progesterone in both male and pseudopregnant female brain. The significant increase in neurosteroid levels in the male brain after TBI is consistent with their role in neuroprotection. In pseudopregnant females, high levels of circulating progestagens may provide protection against TBI.

Review: derivatization in mass spectrometry-6. Formation of mixed derivatives of polyfunctional compounds

The review describes chemical transformations of multifunctional compounds (amino acids and peptides, amino alcohols, amino thiols, hydroxy acids, oxo acids, oxo alcohols, compounds containing simultaneously three or more different groups etc.) by using step-wise or one-step modification or protection of functional groups. Some chemical aspects of mixed derivatization performed for improving the physical-chemical properties and mass spectral characteristics are discussed. Application of mixed derivatization to qualitative and quantitative analysis of various multifunctional compounds mainly in biological fluids and other matrices by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry in electron ionization, chemical ionization, negative-ion chemical ionization and selected ion monitoring modes is considered.

Determination and quantification of α,β,γ,δ-unsaturated aldehydes as pentafluorobenzyl-oxime derivates in diatom cultures and natural phytoplankton populations: application in marine field studies

Reactive alpha,beta,gamma,delta-unsaturated aldehydes and oxo-acids produced by marine diatoms upon cell damage interfere negatively with the reproduction success of their grazers. A simple, sensitive and specific method based on gas-chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (EI or CI/EC) was developed for the quantification of these deleterious substances in laboratory diatom cultures and in natural phytoplankton populations. For aldehyde quantification, diatom containing samples are damaged in the presence of O-(2,3,4,5,6-pentafluorobenzyl) hydroxylamine hydrochloride (PFBHA.HCl) which leads to an in situ derivatisation without inhibition of the biosynthesis of the aldehydes. The oxime derivates of oxo-acids were in addition reacted with N-tert-butyldimethylsilyl-N-methyl-trifluoracetamide (MTBSTFA).

Determination of corticosterone and 17-hydroxycorticosterone in plasma and urine samples by sweeping techniques using micellar electrokinetic chromatography

The analysis of corticosterone in mouse blood serum (metabolic-stress experiment) and 17-hydroxycorticosterone in human urine (exercise-stress experiment) samples by means of capillary electrophoresis/UV absorbance in conjunction with online sample concentration techniques is described. The use of normal MEKC had an analyte detection limit of 7 microg/ml (S/N=3); whereas when online sample concentration methods, including sweeping-micellar electrokinetic chromatography (Sweeping-MEKC) and cation-selective exhaustive injection-sweep-micellar electrokinetic chromatography (CSEI-sweep-MEKC) were used, the detection limits could be improved to 3 and 5 ng/ml, respectively. In the analysis of actual samples from animal metabolic-stress experiments (39 mouse), chronically stressed animals showed a higher level (552+/-152 ng/ml) and acute stressed animals showed an intermediate level (375+/-105 ng/ml). In comparison, normal animals show a lower concentration level of corticosterone (153+/-109 ng/ml). In addition, based on a human exercise-stress experiment (seven volunteers), the acute stressed humans (after exercise, 800 m of running) show a higher concentration of 17-hydroxycorticosterone (113+/-55 ng/ml for males; 128+/-25 for females) and the non-stressed humans (before exercise) show a lower concentration (63+/-37 ng/ml for male; 60+/-20 for female), respectively.