Developing a UHPLC-QTOF-MS and Automated Library Search Method for Screening Drugs and Toxic Compounds in Postmortem Specimens

Abstract

Screening and confirming the presence of drugs and toxic compounds in various matrices are important and challenging tasks routinely faced by forensic and clinical laboratories. Recent advances in the liquid chromatographic and mass spectrometric technologies have provided an opportunity for the development of more specific and effective approaches to achieve the "screening" and "confirmation" goals in a single analytical step. The objectives of this study are: (i) the establishment of an ultra-high performance liquid chromatographic, quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometric mass spectrometric and MS-MS spectral database, including 1,200 compounds of interest; and (ii) the development of an effective protocol, using this database and three searching algorithms, for general unknown screening of these compounds. The established database and protocol were evaluated through the analysis of 30 external proficiency test and 100 postmortem samples and found to be significantly more effective than the LC-IT-MS and GC-MS approaches previously established in our laboratory.