New approach to the determination phosphorothioate oligonucleotides by ultra high performance liquid chromatography coupled with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

•ICP-MS enables the selective detection of phosphorus at m/z 31 and sulfur at m/z 32.•ICP-SF-MS is more sensitive than quadrupole ICP(ORS)-MS when phosphorus or sulfur are analyzed.•Simultaneous analysis 31P and 32S is used for discrimination of antisense oligo and other compounds.•Phosphorothioate oligo and metabolites were successfully determined in serum during 7 min.

This text presents a novel method for the separation and detection of phosphorothioate oligonucleotides with the use of ion pair ultra high performance liquid chromatography coupled with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry The research showed that hexafluoroisopropanol/triethylamine based mobile phases may be successfully used when liquid chromatography is coupled with such elemental detection. However, the concentration of both HFIP and TEA influences the final result. The lower concentration of HFIP, the lower the background in ICP-MS and the greater the sensitivity. The method applied for the analysis of serum samples was based on high resolution inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Utilization of this method allows determination of fifty times lower quantity of phosphorothioate oligonucleotides than in the case of quadrupole mass analyzer. Monitoring of 31P may be used to quantify these compounds at the level of 80 μg L−1, while simultaneous determination of sulfur is very useful for qualitative analysis. Moreover, the results presented in this paper demonstrate the practical applicability of coupling LC with ICP-MS in determining phosphorothioate oligonucleotides and their metabolites in serum within 7 min with a very good sensitivity. The method was linear in the concentration range between 0.2 and 3 mg L−1. The limit of detection was in the range of 0.07 and 0.13 mg L−1. Accuracy varied with concentration, but was in the range of 3%.

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