Background
The renin–angiotensin system produces a series of biologically active angiotensin (Ang) peptides. These Ang peptides are the major regulators of blood pressure and Na homeostasis, and play ...a critical role in maintaining cardiovascular and fluid homeostasis. The concentration of Ang peptides in the body is at trace levels, making their detection and quantification a challenge. In this study, a rapid and sensitive analytical method using mass spectrometry coupled with ultrahigh‐performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC/MS) was developed to simultaneously quantify 14 Ang peptides.
Methods
UHPLC/MS was employed to quantify 14 Ang peptides in mouse and human plasma. An HSS T3 column (2.1 × 100 mm, 1.8 μm) with an HSS T3 precolumn and triple‐quadrupole mass spectrometer combined with an electrospray ionization source were utilized. Sample pretreatment involved a one‐step protein precipitation using methanol. The total analysis time was within 7.5 min and the target peptides were detected in positive ion mode and quantified by selected reaction monitoring mode.
Results
The method was validated for linearity, detection and quantification limits, precision, stability, recovery and matrix effect. The limits of detection of Ang II, Ang III, Ang‐(1–7), Ang‐(2–7), Ang‐(3–7), Ang‐(1–9), bradykinin, Asn
1
and Val
5
‐Ang II are all less than 1 pg mL
−1
, indicating high sensitivity. The intra‐day and inter‐day precision was within 15%, and the accuracy was between 85% and 115%. Meanwhile, the sample and reference solution were stable within 48 h, and the recovery and matrix effect met the quantitative requirements.
Conclusions
The method is currently reported to allow the largest number of Ang peptide species to be detected at one time. In addition, the proposed method offers a fast and reliable approach for comprehensive analysis of Ang metabolism in biological samples, facilitating research on the physiological and pathological states of cardiovascular, kidney and respiratory diseases.
Deep eutectic solvents have received increasing attention over the past decade, and the green and versatile nature makes them important media for developing environmentally friendly and sustainable ...technologies. In addition to act as green alternatives to traditional organic solvents, deep eutectic solvents offer tremendous opportunities to produce different kinds of emerging functional materials. The present review highlights the recent development and applications of deep functional materials based on deep eutectic solvents as novel adsorbents for diverse analytes in complex matrices. The type, preparation, and unique properties of deep eutectic solvents, the synthesis of deep eutectic solvent derived materials, as well as their applications in chromatographic separation are described. We aim to demonstrate that deep eutectic solvents not only allow the design of eco‐friendly extraction processes but also open straightforward access to advanced materials in sample preparation.
A novel carboxyl-functionalized metal–organic framework for highly efficient uranium sorption was prepared through a generic postsynthetic strategy, and this MOF’s saturation sorption capacity is ...found to be as high as 314 mg·g–1. The preliminary application illustrated that the grafted free-standing carboxyl groups have notably enhanced the sorption of uranyl ions on MIL-101. In addition, we have performed molecular dynamics simulation combined with density functional theory calculations to investigate the molecular insights of uranyl ions binding on MOFs. The high selectivity and easy separation of the as-prepared material have shown tremendous potential for practical applications in the nuclear industry or radioactive water treatment, and the functionalized MOF can be extended readily upon the versatility of click chemistry. This work provides a facile and purposeful approach for developing MOFs toward a highly efficient and selective extraction of uranium(VI) in aqueous solution, and it further facilitates the structure-based design of nanomaterials for radionuclide-containing-medium pretreatment.
Safety issues caused by pharmaceuticals have frequently occurred worldwide, posing a tremendous threat to human health. As an essential part of drug development, the toxicological analysis and safety ...evaluation is of great significance. In addition, the risk of pharmaceuticals accumulation in the environment and the monitoring of the toxicity from natural medicines have also received ongoing concerns. Due to a lack of spatial distribution information provided by common analytical methods, analyses that provide spatial dimensions could serve as complementary safety evaluation methods for better prediction and evaluation of drug toxicity. With advances in technical solutions and software algorithms, mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) has received increasing attention as a popular analytical tool that enables the simultaneous implementation of qualitative, quantitative, and localization without complex sample pretreatment and labeling steps. In recent years, MSI has become more attractive, powerful, and sensitive and has been applied in several scientific fields that can meet the safety assessment requirements. This review aims to cover a detailed summary of the various MSI technologies utilized in the biomedical and pharmaceutical area, including technical principles, advantages, current status, and future trends. Representative applications and developments in the safety‐related issues of different pharmaceuticals and natural medicines are also described to provide a reference for pharmaceutical research, improve rational clinical medicine use, and ensure public safety.
A simple, cost-effective, and portable uranium sensory material with adequate selectivity is increasingly urgent and would be of great importance in environmental monitoring of radionuclides. Herein, ...we report a novel luminescent europium metal-organic framework (Eu-MOF) with plenty of Lewis basic sites for binding uranyl ions (UO
2
2+
), the most common form of uranium in solution, through a facile one-step solvothermal synthetic route. The mesoporous structure consists of europium nodes and flexible nitrogen-containing ligands with a 29.2 × 20.5 Å
2
channel along the c-axis. Furthermore, the obtained material displays characteristic fluorescence of trivalent Eu
3+
and could be applied as a turn-off sensory probe targeting UO
2
2+
in solution. Differential fluorescent quenching occurred upon a series of potential interfering ions compared to UO
2
2+
and the detection limit as low as 0.9 μM was achieved with a rapid response.
Graphical abstract
Progesterone is the representative progestogens in five major classes of steroid hormones and plays important roles in mammalian pregnancy and animal growth and development. Conventional available ...analytical methods for progesterone involve immunoassay, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS), which lack specificity or usually require sophisticated operations and relatively long time. Herein, we developed a novel strategy for rapid analysis of progesterone via direct analysis in real time mass spectrometry (DART-MS) combined with solid-phase extraction (SPE) using an amino functionalized metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Under optimized conditions, a wide linear range of 0.5–500 ng mL
−1
was achieved, with a satisfactory correlation coefficient (
R
2
= 0.9992). The relative standard deviations (RSDs) were in the range from 2.4 to 8.4%, demonstrating good precision. The applicability was then confirmed by analyzing spiked lake water and synthetic urine samples, and recoveries are between 92.0 and 117.8% in all three spiked levels (5, 25, and 100 ng mL
−1
). The sensitivity was notably improved compared with solely DART-MS and obtained detection limit decreased by about 50 times. This research provided a rapid, simple, highly sensitive, and efficient approach for analysis of hormones through combination of advantages of ambient mass spectrometry and porous nanomaterials.
Graphical abstract
The extraction of active constituents from natural sources in a green and efficient manner is considered an important field in the pharmaceutical industry. In recent years, deep eutectic solvents ...(DESs), a new type of green solvent, have attracted increasing attention. Therefore, we aimed to establish a green and high-efficiency extraction method for ginsenosides based on DESs. This study takes Panax ginseng as a model sample. Eighteen different DESs were produced to extract polar ginsenosides. Ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) was applied for simplicity and efficiency. A binary DES synthesized using choline chloride and urea at a proportion of 1:2 prepared by a heating stirring method is proven to be more effective than other solvents, such as the widely used 70% ethanol for the extraction of ginsenosides. Three variables that might affect the extraction, including the DES content in the extraction solvent, liquid/solid ratio, and ultrasound extraction time, were evaluated for optimization. The optimum extraction conditions for ginsenosides were determined as follows: DES water content of 20 wt%, liquid/solid ratio of 15 mL g−1, and an ultrasonic extraction time of 15 min. The extraction yield for the optimized method is found to be 31% higher than that for 70% ethanol, which achieves efficient extraction. This study shows that DESs are available to extract ginsenosides for use in traditional Chinese medicine. The discovery also contributes to further research into the green extraction of ginsenosides.
Renowned for their nutritional benefits, citrus fruits are harvested at various stages in China for functional food production. This study introduces an innovative analytical method, DART-MS, ...enabling direct qualitative analysis of citrus samples without the need for preprocessing. Simultaneously, the combination of chemometrics can be applied to distinguish between three different citrus samples:
Citri Reticulatae Pericarpium
,
Citri Reticulatae Pericarpium Viride
, and
Citri Reticulatae
"Chachi". Notably, given the international regulatory concerns surrounding synephrine, a precise quantitative analysis method for synephrine was developed. The limit of detection (LOD) and the limit of quantification (LOQ) were 39 ng mL
−1
and 156 ng mL
−1
, respectively. The recovery rates obtained varied from 98.46% to 100.71%. Furthermore, the intra-day and inter-day precision demonstrated robust consistency, with values spanning 5.0-6.1% and 5.03-6.08%, respectively, offering quicker results compared to those from HPLC-MS, promising a safer assessment of herbal and food products.
Bioactive compounds in citrus herbal samples can be rapidly analyzed using a DART-MS-based method.
To explore underlying molecular mechanisms and identify novel lipid biomarkers promising for colorectal cancer (CRC) diagnosis, a continuous-flow two dimensional liquid chromatography–quadrupole ...time-of-flight mass spectrometry (2D LC-QToF/MS) method was employed to comprehensively measure lipid species in human plasma of CRC patients and healthy controls. With a total of 427 annotated lipid species, we identified 64 lipid species with corrected p value less than 0.05 and fold change more than 1.5. These significantly altered lipid species were mainly involved in glycerolipids and glycerophospholipids metabolism and sphingolipids metabolism. After the diagnosis ability evaluation based on the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, phosphatidylglycerol (34:0), sphingomyelin (42:2), ceramide (44:5), lysophosphatidylcholine (18:3), lysophosphatidylcholine (18:2), phosphatidylethanolamine (O-36:3), phosphatidylethanolamine (O-38:3) and sphingomyelin (38:8) were finally proposed as the potential biomarkers with the area under the curve (AUC) more than 0.900. These results suggest that this 2D LC-QToF/MS-based lipidomics profiling has great potential as a noninvasive diagnostic method in detecting CRC and hopefully provide new clues to understand its underlying mechanism.
