Fentanyl Analog Screening using LC-TIMS-TOF MS/MS

Summary

A method for the screening of fentanyl analogs based on their retention time, mobility, and mass spectrometry fragmentation pattern.

Abstract

The use of fentanyl and the emergence of fentanyl analogs over recent decades has become an increasing concern to the community at large. Fentanyl and its analogs are the major contributors to fatal and nonfatal overdoses in the United States. Most recent cases of fentanyl-related overdose are linked to illicitly manufactured fentanyl and its associated extreme potency. In the present work, we describe a high-throughput analytical protocol for the screening of fentanyl analogs. The use of complementary liquid chromatography, trapped ion mobility spectrometry, and tandem mass spectrometry allow for the separation and assignment of hundreds of fentanyl analogs from a single sample in a single scan. The described approach takes advantage of the recent development of data-dependent acquisition and data-independent acquisition using parallel accumulation in the mobility trap followed by sequential fragmentation using collision-induced dissociation. The fentanyl analogs are confidently assigned based on their retention time, mobility, and MS fragmentation pattern.

Introduction

Fentanyl and its analogs are the major contributors to fatal and nonfatal overdoses in the United States^1,2. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the number of synthetic opioid-related overdose deaths from 2013 through 2021 was over 258,000. In 2021 alone, over 68,000 overdose deaths could be attributed to synthetic opioids, totaling 82% of all overdose-related deaths in the nation³. Since 2013, hundreds of fentanyl analogs have been identified, with varying potency⁴. With the emergence of illicitly manufactured fentanyl analogs, the ....

Protocol

1. Sample preparation

1. Store the fentanyl analog screening kit at -20 °C once they have been received. Resuspend each sample to a final concentration of 400 µg/mL by the addition of 500 µL of pure LC/MS grade methanol.
2. Mix using a plate mixer or vortexer at 400 rpm for 1 h or vortex at medium speed for 15 min. After resuspension store the vials at -20 °C.
3. Dilute each standard to a final concentration of 1 ng/mL using pure LC/MS grade methanol.
4. .......

Discussion

The analytical separation of biological samples containing high isomeric content can be analytically challenging. In this paper, the method described aims to characterize 29 isomer sets, for a total of 185 analogs from a 250 opioid standard kit. During the test group preparation, it is important to ensure that there are no two analogs with m/z that cannot be experimentally distinguished. The data described here uses standards not from a human-based matrix, if this method is to be used in a field experiment; additional tr.......

Materials

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Ammonium formate for HPLC	Fluka	17843-50G
Eppendorf Snap-Cap Microcentrifuge Safe-Lock Tubes	Fisher	05-402-25
ESI-L Low Concentration Tuning mix	Agilent	G1969-85000
Fentanyl Analog Screening (FAS) Kit	Cayman Chemical	9003237, 9003286, 9003380, 9003381	kit of 250 snthetic opioids, 210 fentanyl analogs, broken up into one kit and emergent panel versions 1-4
Formic acid Optima LC/MS	Fisher	A117-50
Onyx guard column (5 x 4.6 mm)	Phenomenex	CHO-7649	guard column for C18 columns
Onyx monolithic C18 HPLC column (100 x 4.6 mm)	Phenomenex	CHO-7643	reverse phase C18 LC column
Optima grade acetonitrile	Fisher	A996-4
Optima grade methanol	Fisher	A454-4
Optima grade water	Fisher	W7-4
Pipette	Fisher	05-719-510	kit of 1-10 µL, 10-100 µL, and 100-1000 µL pipette
Pipette tips 10µL	Fisher	94060100
Pipette tips 1000µL	Fisher	94056710
Pipette tips 200µL	Fisher	94060310
Plate mixer	IKA	MS 3 D S1	IKA MS 3 digtital
Prominence LC-20 CE ultrafast liquid chromatograph	Shimadzu, Japan		equiped with DGU-20A5, LC-20AD, SIL-20AC, CTO-20A, SPD-M20A, CBM-20A, SPD-20A
timsTOF Pro	Bruker Daltonics Inc., Billerica, MA		timsTOF instrument with PASEF