Abstract
A rapid sample treatment procedure for the gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS) determination of 19-nortestosterone (19-NT) in animal tissues has been developed. In our optimized procedures, enzymatic hydrolysis with β-glucuronidase from Escherichia coli was performed in an acetate buffer (pH 5.2, 0.2 mol/L). Next, the homogenate was mixed with methanol and heated at 60 °C for 15 min, then placed in an ice-bath at −18 °C for 2 h. After liquid-liquid extraction with n-hexane, the analytes were subjected to a normal-phase solid phase extraction (SPE) C18 cartridge for clean-up. The dried organic extracts were derivatized with heptafluorobutyric anhydride (HFBA), and then the products were injected into GC-MS. Using electron impact mass spectrometry (EI-MS) with positive chemical ionization (PCI), four diagnostic ions (m/z 666, 453, 318, and 306) were determined. A standard calibration curve over the concentration range of 1–20 ng/g was reached, with Y=467 084X-68 354 (R 2=0.999 7) for 19-NT, and the detection limit was 0.3 ng. When applied to spiked samples collected from bovine and ovine, the recoveries ranged from 63% to 101% with relative standard deviation (RSD) between 2.7% and 8.9%. The procedure is a highly efficient, sensitive, and more economical method which offers considerable potential to resolve cases of suspected nandrolone doping in husbandry animals.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bagatell, C.J., Bremner, W.J., 1996. Androgens in men-uses and abuses. N. Engl. J. Med., 334(11):707–714.
Bagnati, R., Fanelli, R., 1991. Determination of 19-nortestosterone, testosterone and trenbolone by gas chromatography-negative-ion mass spectrometry after formation of the pentafluorobenzyl carboxymethoxime-trimethylsilyl derivatives. J. Chromatogr. A, 547(1-2):325–334. [doi:10.1016/S0021-9673(01)88656-8]
Bahrke, M.S., Yesalis, C.E., 2004. Abuse of anabolic androgenic steroids and related substances in sport and exercise. Curr. Opin. Pharmacol., 4(6):614–620. [doi:10.1016/j.coph.2004.05.006]
Barrón, D., Barbosa, J., Pascual, J.A., Segura, J., 1996. Direct determination of anabolic steroids in human urine by on-line solid-phase extraction/liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry. J. Mass Spectrom., 31(3):309–319. [doi:10.1002/(SICI)1096-9888(199603)31:3〈309::AID-JMS298〉3.0.CO;2-6]
Brännvall, K., Bogdanovic, N., Korhonen, L., Lindholm, D., 2005. 19-Nortestosterone influences neural stem cell proliferation and neurogenesis in the rat brain. Eur. J. Neurosci., 21(4):871–878. [doi:10.1111/j.1460-9568.2005.03942.x]
Bricout, V., Wright, F., 2004. Update on nandrolone and norsteroids: how endogenous or xenobiotic are these substances? Eur. J. Appl. Physiol., 92(1-2):1–12. [doi:10.1007/s00421-004-1051-3]
Chen, Y., Liu, N., Liu, X.X., Li, K., 2004. Effects of nandrolone phenylpropionate on fibroblasts after injury in rats. J. Sichuan Univ. (Med. Sci. Ed.), 35(4):508–511 (in Chinese).
Choi, M.H., Chung, B.C., Lee, W., Lee, U.C., Kim, Y., 1999. Determination of anabolic steroids by gas chromatography/negative-ion chemical ionization mass spectrometry and gas chromatography/negative-ion chemical ionization tandem mass spectrometry with heptafluorobutyric anhydride derivatization. Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom., 13(5):376–380. [doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-0231(19990315)13:5〈376::AID-RCM494〉3.0.CO;2-#]
Conneely, G., Aherne, M., Lu, H., Guilbault, G.G., 2007. Electrochemical immunosensors for the detection of 19-nortestosterone and methyltestosterone in bovine urine. Sens. Actuators B, 121(1):103–112. [doi:10.1016/j.snb.2006.09.035]
Daeseleire, E., Vandeputte, R., Peteghem, C.V., 1998. Validation of multi-residue methods for the detection of anabolic steroids by GC-MS in muscle tissues and urine samples from cattle. Analyst, 123(12):2595–2598. [doi:10.1039/a805164j]
de Boer, D., Bensink, S.N., Borggreve, A.R., van Ooijen, R.D., Maes, R.A.A., 1995. Profiling 19-norsteroids. I-tandem mass spectrometric characterization of the heptafluorobutyryl ester and pentadnorobenzyloxime heptafluorobutyryl ester derivatives of 19-nortestosterone using collisionally activated dissociation. J. Mass Spectrom., 30(3): 497–504. [doi:10.1002/jms.1190300316]
Delbeke, F.T., Desmet, N., Debackere, M., 1995. The abuse of doping agents in competing body builders in Flanders (1988–1993). Int. J. Sports Med., 16(1):66–70. [doi:10.1055/s-2007-972966]
Draisci, R., Palleschi, L., Ferretti, E., Lucentini, L., Delli Quadri, F., 2003. Confirmatory analysis of 17β-boldenone, 17α-boldenone and androsta-1,4-diene-3,17-dione in bovine urine by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. J. Chromatogr. B, 789(2):219–226. [doi:10.1016/S1570-0232(03)00072-2]
Dubois, M., Taillieu, X., Colemonts, Y., Lansival, B., de Graeve, J., Delahaut, P., 1998. GC-MS determination of anabolic steroids after multi-immunoaffinity purification. Analyst, 123(12):2611–2616. [doi:10.1039/a805114c]
Gasparini, M., Assini, W., Bozzoni, E., Tognoli, N., Dusi, G., 2007. Development and validation of a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method for the separation of conjugated and unconjugated 17α- and 17β-boldenone in urine sample. Anal. Chim. Acta, 586(1–2):154–162. [doi:10.1016/j.aca.2006.08.059]
Hartmann, S., Steinhart, H., 1997. Simultaneous determination of anabolic and catabolic steroid hormones in meat by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. J. Chromatogr. B, 704(1–2):105–117.
Heitzman, R.J., 1976. The effectiveness of anabolic agents in increasing rate of growth in farm animals: report on experiments in cattle. Environ. Qual. Saf. Suppl., 5:89–98.
Houghton, E., Oxley, G.A., Moss, M.S., Evans, S., 1978. Studies related to the metabolism of anabolic steroids in the horse: a gas chromatographic mass spectrometric method to confirm the administration of 19-nortestosterone or its esters to horses. Biol. Mass Spectrom., 5(2):170–173. [doi:10.1002/bms.1200050213]
Kohler, R.M., Lambert, M.I., 2002. Urine nandrolone metabolites: false positive doping test? Br. J. Sports Med., 36(5):325–329. [doi:10.1136/bjsm.36.5.325]
Le Bizec, B., Bryand, F., Gaudin, I., Monteau, F., Poulain, F., Andre, F., 2002. Endogenous nandrolone metabolites in human urine: preliminary results to discriminate between endogenous and exogenous origin. Steroids, 67(2): 105–110.
Petersen, H.W., Christensen, F., Vad, M., 1994. Method validation in relation to accuracy and precision for the gas chromatography-mass spectrometric analysis of 19-nortestosterone in urine with heptafluorobutyric anhydride and N-methyl-N-(trimethylsilyl) trifluoroacetamide. Analyst, 119(12):2627–2630. [doi:10.1039/an9941902627]
Roda, A., Manetta, A.C., Portanti, O., Mirasoli, M., Guardigli, M., Pasini, P., Lelli, R., 2003. A rapid and sensitive 384-well microtitre format chemiluminescent enzyme immunoassay for 19-nortestosterone. Luminescence, 18(2):72–78. [doi:10.1002/bio.708]
Roig, M., Segura, J., Ventura, R., 2007. Quantitation of 17β-nandrolone metabolites in boar and horse urine by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Anal. Chim. Acta, 586(1-2):184–195. [doi:10.1016/j.aca.2006.08.033]
Saito, K., Yagi, K., Ishizaki, A., Kataoka, H., 2010. Determination of anabolic steroids in human urine by automated in-tube solid-phase microextraction coupled with liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. J. Pharm. Biomed. Anal., 52(5):727–733. [doi:10.1016/j.jpba.2010.02.027]
Sauer, M.J., Samuels, T.P., Howells, L.G., Seymour, M.A., Nedderman, A., Houghton, E., Bellworthy, S.J., Anderson, S., Coldham, N.G., 1998. Residues and metabolism of 19-nortestosterone laurate in steers. Analyst, 123(12):2653–2660. [doi:10.1039/a805617j]
van Poucke, C., van Peteghem, C., 2002. Development and validation of a multi-analyte method for the detection of anabolic steroids in bovine urine with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. J. Chromatogr. B, 772(2):211–217.
Ventura, R., Roig, M., Pérez, B., López, S., Medina, M., Bosch, J., Segura, J., 2008. Detection of the administration of 17β-nortestosterone in boars by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom., 22(12):1863–1870. [doi:10.1002/rcm.3563]
Yamada, M., Aramaki, S., Kurosawa, M., Kijima-Suda, I., Saito, K., Nakazawa, H., 2008. Simultaneous doping analysis of main urinary metabolites of anabolic steroids in horse by ion-trap gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Anal. Sci., 24(9):1199–1204. [doi:10.2116/analsci.24.1199]
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Additional information
The two authors contributed equally to this work
Project supported by the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for National Science and Technology of China (No. 2006BAK02A21/1) and the Henan Innovation Project for University Prominent Research Talents (No.2010HASTIT026), China
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jiang, Jq., Zhang, L., Li, Gl. et al. Analysis of 19-nortestosterone residue in animal tissues by ion-trap gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. J. Zhejiang Univ. Sci. B 12, 460–467 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.B1000301
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.B1000301