Abstract
Ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QTOF-MS) with all-ion fragmentation (AIF) acquisition was established for an identification and quantification of illegal adulterated glucocorticoids in dietary supplements and herbal products. Next, a novel method called characteristic fragment ion list classification (CFILC) was developed for a fast screening of adulterated compounds. CFILC could provide the characteristic ions comprehensively and completely through direct extract from the MS2 library instead of finding them manually. This is time-saving and provides fast screening results with a high confidence level by filtering of a pre-calculated threshold of similarity scores for illegal adulterants that are not included in the library as well as for new emerging structural analogs. The obtained results demonstrated the great qualitative and quantitative strength of this approach, providing a promising and powerful method for a routine fast screening of illegal adulterated glucocorticoids.
Highlights
In recent years, dietary supplements and herbal products have become popular because they are considered safer than synthetic drugs and free of side effects
Our method gives results of a high confidence level regarding the fast screening of illegal adulterants that are not included in the library, as well as new emerging structure analogs through the classification of common ions and precalculated threshold similarity score
The true positive rate (TPR) and false positive rate (FPR) in the test sample were calculated under different combinations by traversing the combination of score 1 and score 2, and the results revealed that when score 1 was 0.30 and score 2 was 0.29, the maximum Youden index was obtained
Summary
Dietary supplements and herbal products have become popular because they are considered safer than synthetic drugs and free of side effects. The dietary supplements and herbal products industry in China have developed rapidly over the past decades. Some industries illegally add synthetic drugs to improve short-term therapeutic effects, potentially leading to serious health consequences. The demand for a rapid screening of illegal adulterants in dietary supplements and herbal products by clinicians in Chinese hospitals continues to rise. Glucocorticoids (GCs) include steroid hormones secreted by the adrenal cortex and active synthetic analogs. They are highly effective drugs commonly used for the treatment of allergies, asthma, and autoimmune diseases, due to their ability of reducing inflammation and suppressing
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