Steroid ionization technology III: Novel gas chromatography-electrospray ionization/orbitrap mass spectrometry (GC-ESI/HRMS) for ionization of steroids

Abstract

Anabolic steroids are extensively abused to improve performance in sports. Gas chromatography-electron impact ionization/mass spectrometry (GC-EI/MS) method has been generally used for the detection of steroids. But conventional methods using the GC-EI/MS have technical bottleneck such as the hard ionization of electron impact ion source. Recently, even though the analytical methods using liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization/tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI/MS/MS) have been developed, the LC-ESI/MS/MS methods have also several bottlenecks such as the simultaneous ionization in single ion source and the chromatographic separation. Therefore, in this study, we developed the novel gas chromatography-electrospray ionization/orbitrap mass spectrometry (GC-ESI/HRMS) instrument system and optimized the interface parameters such as gas, angle, length and temperature etc. between ESI needle and outlet of GC capillary column. The results revealed that GC-ESI/HRMS technique provides a high chromatographic resolution, soft ionization process, and high selectivity.