TY - JOUR

T1 - Finding the proverbial needle

T2 - Non-targeted screening of synthetic opioids in equine plasma

AU - Klingberg, Joshua

AU - Cawley, Adam

AU - Shimmon, Roznald

AU - Fouracre, Chris

AU - Pasin, Daniel

AU - Fu, Shanlin

N1 - © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

PY - 2021/5

Y1 - 2021/5

N2 - Synthetic opioids are a class of compounds that are of particular concern due to their high potency and potential health impacts. With the relentless emergence of new synthetic opioid derivatives, non-targeted screening strategies are required that do not rely on the use of library spectra or reference materials. In this study, product ion searching, and Kendrick mass defect analysis were investigated for non-targeted screening of synthetic opioids. The estimated screening cut-offs for these techniques ranged between 0.05 and 0.1 ng/mL. These techniques were designed to not be reliant on a particular vendor's software, meaning that they can be applied to existing drug screening protocols, without requiring the development and validation of new analytical procedures. The efficacy of the developed techniques was tested through blind trials, with spiked samples inserted amongst authentic plasma samples, which demonstrated the usefulness of these methods for high-throughput screening. The use of a non-targeted screening workflow that contains complementary techniques can increase the likelihood of detecting compounds of interest within a sample, as well as the confidence in detections that are made.

AB - Synthetic opioids are a class of compounds that are of particular concern due to their high potency and potential health impacts. With the relentless emergence of new synthetic opioid derivatives, non-targeted screening strategies are required that do not rely on the use of library spectra or reference materials. In this study, product ion searching, and Kendrick mass defect analysis were investigated for non-targeted screening of synthetic opioids. The estimated screening cut-offs for these techniques ranged between 0.05 and 0.1 ng/mL. These techniques were designed to not be reliant on a particular vendor's software, meaning that they can be applied to existing drug screening protocols, without requiring the development and validation of new analytical procedures. The efficacy of the developed techniques was tested through blind trials, with spiked samples inserted amongst authentic plasma samples, which demonstrated the usefulness of these methods for high-throughput screening. The use of a non-targeted screening workflow that contains complementary techniques can increase the likelihood of detecting compounds of interest within a sample, as well as the confidence in detections that are made.

U2 - 10.1002/dta.2893

DO - 10.1002/dta.2893

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 32627304

VL - 13

SP - 977

EP - 989

JO - Drug Testing and Analysis

JF - Drug Testing and Analysis

SN - 1942-7603

IS - 5

ER -