Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry: An Emerging Technology in the Toxicology Laboratory

Abstract

In the last decade, liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) has seen enormous growth in routine toxicology laboratories. LC-MS/MS offers significant advantages over other traditional testing, such as immunoassay and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry methodologies. Major strengths of LC-MS/MS include improvement in specificity, flexibility, and sample throughput when compared with other technologies. Here, the basic principles of LC-MS/MS technology are reviewed, followed by advantages and disadvantages of this technology compared with other traditional techniques. In addition, toxicology applications of LC-MS/MS for simultaneous detection of large panels of analytes are presented.

Keywords: APCI; APPI; ESI; Immunoassay; LC-MS/MS; MRM; Quadrupole mass spectrometer; Toxicology application.