Abstract
Strychnine is an alkaloid with strong toxic properties. Poisoning results in muscular contractions and death through asphyxiation. Intentional or accidental poisonings with strychnine occur mainly in small animals, especially dogs and occasionally cats. Strychnine can be detected in the liver or stomach contents. Unfortunately, the determination of strychnine in these matrices, especially in postmortem examination, is subject to a significant matrix effect that makes it difficult to confirm the presence of the substance being determined. Therefore, we developed a new liquid chromatography method combined with mass spectrometry. One-gram homogenized samples were extracted and partitioned after adding acetonitrile and 5-mol solution of ammonium acetate. After extraction, the samples were analyzed using high-pressure liquid chromatography-MS/MS/MS. The results of validation fulfil the requirement of the confirmatory criteria according to SANTE/11945/2015 regarding apparent recoveries (98.97% to 104.0%), repeatability (2.9%–4.1%), and within-laboratory reproducibility (3.3%–4.6%). The method can be successfully applied to confirm strychnine poisoning cases.
Highlights
Strychnine is an alkaloid with extremely toxic properties
QuEChERS is a method commonly used in pesticide determination, which we successfully use to determine toxic substances like rodenticides, carbamate and organophosphorus pesticides, coccidiostats, and mycotoxins [12]. The combination of this method with HPLC–MS3 made it easier to confirm strychnine in liver matrices
The new HPLC-MS3 was validated, confirming that this procedure fulfils the requirements of the confirmatory criteria according to SANTE/11945/2015 [18]
Summary
Strychnine is an alkaloid with extremely toxic properties. In the past it was used as a rodenticide against mice and rats, and in medicine as a laxative, appetizer, and stimulant of the central nerve system [1,2]. Cases of strychnine poisoning are usually acute or hyperacute In such cases, the toxin most often has reached high concentrations in the stomach contents, but it is present in the liver [12]. The liver samples are carefully chosen based on the expected concentrations and analytical techniques used for examination, as a best choice to control their presence in poisoned animals. This kind of sample is complex and can contain different interferences (i.e., liver from different animal classes like omnivores, carnivores, and herbivores). The combination of this method with HPLC–MS3 made it easier to confirm strychnine in liver matrices. The new HPLC-MS3 was validated, confirming that this procedure fulfils the requirements of the confirmatory criteria according to SANTE/11945/2015 [18]
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