Investigation of uremic analytes in hemodialysate and their structural elucidation from accurate mass maps generated by a multi‐dimensional liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry approach

Historically, structural elucidation of unknown analytes by mass spectrometry alone has involved tandem mass spectrometry experiments using electron ionization. Most target molecules for bioanalysis in the metabolome are unsuitable for detection by this previous methodology. Recent publications have used high‐resolution accurate mass analysis using an LTQ‐Orbitrap with the more modern approach of electrospray ionization to identify new metabolites of known metabolic pathways. We have investigated the use of this methodology to build accurate mass fragmentation maps for the structural elucidation of unknown compounds. This has included the development and validation of a novel multi‐dimensional LC/MS/MS methodology to identify known uremic analytes in a clinical hemodialysate sample. Good inter‐ and intra‐day reproducibility of both chromatographic stages with a high degree of mass accuracy and precision was achieved with the multi‐dimensional liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) system. Fragmentation maps were generated most successfully using collision‐induced dissociation (CID) as, unlike high‐energy CID (HCD), ions formed by this technique could be fragmented further. Structural elucidation is more challenging for large analytes >270 Da and distinguishing between isomers where their initial fragmentation pattern is insufficiently different. For small molecules (<200 Da), where fragmentation data may be obtained without loss of signal intensity, complete structures can be proposed from just the accurate mass fragmentation data. This methodology has led to the discovery of a selection of known uremic analytes and two completely novel moieties with chemical structural assignments made. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.