An open access publication describes a high-throughput platform for the rapid screening of vitamin D by direct infusion-MS/MS. This work was performed by the TMIC’s Node leader from McMaster University Dr. Philip Britz-McKibbin and his colleagues. As a result of their development, an optimized liquid-phase extraction protocol was developed to minimize ion suppression when directly infusing serum or plasma extracts via a capillary electrophoresis (CE). Authors demonstrate that the proposed method could reduce commercial immunoassay misclassification of vitamin D deficiency in a cohort of critically ill children.
CE-MS system with software control was utilized in this work. This approach allowed automating repeat sample injections and infusion process without voltage application. This separation-free method is easily transferrable to other laboratories without specialized flow injection or sequential injection equipment.
CE-MS based metabolomics studied can be accessed via TMIC’s McMaster University Node. Dr. Britz-McKibbin has contributed to innovations in capillary electrophoresis and mass spectrometry for metabolomics as applied to preventative health. His team is addressing several major obstacles that hinder progress in metabolomics, including sample throughput, data quality and the identification of unknown metabolites of clinical significance in complex biological samples. More details about Britz-McKibbin’s node services (both quantitative and semi-quantitative) can be found here: https://metabolomicscentre.ca/services/
The proposed strategy enables more robust high-throughput screening which is not practical with LC-MS/MS. It allows better analytical and clinical performance than a commercial immunoassay system. Automated programming of infusion and flushing steps using a CE instrument for DI-MS/MS provided an effective duty cycle of 3.3 min/sample allowing for continuous operation with minimal troubleshooting.
Dr. P. Britz-McKibbin Node of The Metabolomics innovation centre offers the following assays with CE-MS technology:
- Targeted analysis of drugs of abuse and cannabinoid metabolites – Identification and quantification of illicit and prescribed drugs (and their metabolites) in urine in < 3 min/sample
- Targeted analysis of fatty acids – Measurement of free (nonesterified) fatty acids in a high sample throughput format
- Targeted analysis of major electrolytes/(in)organic ions – Measurement of major electrolytes, including those with low ionization energy. Ideal for low volume samples (<5 uL or < 5 mg dried weight)
- Targeted analysis of polar metabolites – A high sample throughput assay for identification and quantification of a wide range of polar metabolites ideal for large-scale studies, ionic metabolites, and low volume samples (<5 uL or < 5 mg dried weight)
- High throughput global metabolomics by MSI-CE-MS for large scale epidemiological and clinical studies – This service aims at providing high throughput yet nontargeted metabolomic analyses that is optimal for large-scale epidemiological and clinical studies (n > 1000) with stringent quality control
Contact us if you have further questions regarding Dr. Britz-McKibbin assays or other analytical capabilities of TMIC.
