Development of a method for the screening of sports doping compounds using multidimensional liquid chromatography and time of flight mass spectrometry

Abstract

Athletes have often resorted to a variety of methods to gain an edge in sporting competitions. One such method is through doping, the use of compounds or methods to produce a theoretically enhancing biological effect. In order to combat doping, many governing sports bodies have prohibited specific compounds or methods and installed programs to test for these compounds in athletes. However, due to the large number of banned substances and the varying chemistries of those compounds, it can be challenging and time consuming to determine the presence of those compounds in an athlete’s sample. Therefore, there is a necessity to develop a quick and sensitive method that can precisely and accurately screen for banned substances. This research was an attempt to develop such a method. This was accomplished using multidimensional liquid chromatography with time of flight mass spectrometry. While none of the methods tested here were useful for screening all 79 compounds tested in a single injection, a multi-method approach was evaluated in lieu of a multi-residues single method process The analytical run time was less than 10 minutes for each method. Further studies were performed to determine the limit of detection, linearity, lifetime, robustness and the optimal solid phase extraction method.