Rapid Determination of Adenine Arabinoside Monophosphate in Pharmaceutical Injections by Droplet Spray Ionization – Tandem Mass Spectrometry (DSI-MS/MS)

Abstract

Rapid analysis of pharmaceutical preparations is of great interest in clinical studies with benefits for identifying counterfeit drugs. In this study, droplet spray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (DSI-MS/MS) was developed for the rapid determination of adenine arabinoside monophosphate in pharmaceutical injections without complex sample pretreatment. The sample solution was loaded on the slip corner placed in front of the inlet of a mass spectrometer, and high voltage was applied to the solution to create a charged spray from the corner for MS analysis. The sample was loaded for analysis without additional sample preparation protocols, which greatly simplifies the operation. The limit of detection and limit of quantification were determined to be 2.7 and 9.1 ng/mL, respectively. The recoveries were in the range from 96% to 112%, and the calculated relative standard deviations were less than 7% for the DSI-MS/MS method. Three adenine arabinoside monophosphate pharmaceutical injection samples and a degraded sample obtained by acid treatment at 40 °C were successfully analyzed by directly dissolving and diluting the sample. Moreover, the sample-loading step required only 2 s. Together these capabilities indicate that the DSI-MS/MS is a simple and robust method and has promising applications in pharmacology studies without complicated sample pretreatment.