Identification of urinary metabolites of imperatorin with a single run on an LC/Triple TOF system based on multiple mass defect filter data acquisition and multiple data mining techniques

Anal Bioanal Chem. 2013 Aug;405(21):6721-38. doi: 10.1007/s00216-013-7132-6. Epub 2013 Jul 24.

Abstract

The detection of drug metabolites, especially for minor metabolites, continues to be a challenge because of the complexity of biological samples. Imperatorin (IMP) is an active natural furocoumarin component originating from many traditional Chinese herbal medicines and is expected to be pursued as a new vasorelaxant agent. In the present study, a generic and efficient approach was developed for the in vivo screening and identification of IMP metabolites using liquid chromatography-Triple TOF mass spectrometry. In this approach, a novel on-line data acquisition method mutiple mass defect filter (MMDF) combined with dynamic background subtraction was developed to trace all probable urinary metabolites of IMP. Comparing with the traditionally intensity-dependent data acquisition method, MMDF method could give the information of low-level metabolites masked by background noise and endogenous components. Thus, the minor metabolites in complex biological matrices could be detected. Then, the sensitive and specific multiple data-mining techniques extracted ion chromatography, mass defect filter, product ion filter, and neutral loss filter were used for the discovery of IMP metabolites. Based on the proposed strategy, 44 phase I and 7 phase II metabolites were identified in rat urine after oral administration of IMP. The results indicated that oxidization was the main metabolic pathway and that different oxidized substituent positions had a significant influence on the fragmentation of the metabolites. Two types of characteristic ions at m/z 203 and 219 can be observed in the MS/MS spectra. This is the first study of IMP metabolism in vivo. The interpretation of the MS/MS spectra of these metabolites and the proposed metabolite pathway provide essential data for further pharmacological studies of other linear-type furocoumarins.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Administration, Oral
  • Animals
  • Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / methods*
  • Data Mining / methods*
  • Furocoumarins / administration & dosage*
  • Furocoumarins / urine*
  • Male
  • Rats
  • Rats, Sprague-Dawley
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Spectrometry, Mass, Electrospray Ionization / methods*
  • Tandem Mass Spectrometry / methods*

Substances

  • Furocoumarins
  • imperatorin