Quantitation of the information content of multi-dimensional gas chromatography and low-resolution mass spectrometry in the identification of doping drugs

Abstract

On the basis of information theory, a comparision of the performance of the identification of compounds by multi-dimensional gas chromatography and binary-encoded low-resolution mass spectrometry is made for doping drugs. This group of compounds was not selected at random but according to their pharmocoligical effects. For these compounds it was observed that the m/e values of the peaks in the mass spectra are highly correlated, while a number of chromatographic columns can be found on which the retention data are only slightly correlated. As a result, the information content of two-dimensional gas chromatographic retention data on such columns equals the information content of binary-encoded low-resolution mass spectra. It is shown that the accuracy and precision of retention data in gas-liquid chromatography, and therefore the information content, can be significantly improved if the data are corrected for adsorption effects of the solid support and extrapolated to a limiting value in the case of asymmetric peaks.