Kałużna-Czaplińska J. Current medical research with the application of coupled techniques with mass spectrometry.
Med Sci Monit 2011;
17:RA117-23. [PMID:
21525822 PMCID:
PMC3539600 DOI:
10.12659/msm.881756]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
The most effective methods of analysis of organic compounds in biological fluids are coupled chromatographic techniques. Capillary gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS) allows the most efficient separation, identification and quantification of volatile metabolites in biological fluids. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) is especially suitable for the analysis of non-volatile and/or thermally unstable compounds. A major drawback of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry is that no standard spectral libraries such as NIST and Wiley for GC-MS are available to facilitate the identification of unknown compounds. Moreover, the identification of potential new compounds, especially new biomarkers in LC-MS, is much more challenging than in GC-MS. Capillary electrophoresis coupled with mass spectrometry (CE-MS) has been widely used to characterize metabolomes. Capillary electrophoresis is a powerful technique for the separation of charged metabolites, offering high analyte resolution. The advantages of CE-MS are applicability for hydrophilic metabolites, robust separation efficiency and short duration of analysis.
This review provides an overview of current chromatographic methods – gas chromatography – mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry and capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry – and their applications in current medical research. The focus is on the description of metabonomics research, strategies for biomarkers identification, medical diagnoses of diseases and research of drugs.
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