Optimization to eliminate the interference of migration isomers for measuring 1-O-beta-acyl glucuronide without extensive chromatographic separation

A highly selected reaction monitoring (SRM) method has been investigated for the determination of muraglitazar 1-O-beta-acyl glucuronide in animal and human plasma without chromatographic separation of this naturally formed acyl glucuronide from its migration isomers. In the ion source or the collision cell, glucuronides are often prone to lose the dehydrated glucuronic acid (176 Da) and convert back into the parent drug (aglycone). The extent of loss of the glucuronide moiety can differ among glucuronides. For the naturally occurring muraglitazar 1-O-beta-acyl glucuronide, or its synthetic anomer 1-O-alpha-glucuronide, the loss of the glucuronide moiety was a major fragment ion. The loss of the glucuronide moiety was greater for the 1-O-beta-acyl glucuronide than the 1-O-alpha-anomer. In addition, the loss of the glucuronide moiety was insignificant (less than 0.01%) with the other glucuronide isomers (2-, 3- or 4-O, alpha or beta). Given the fact that the 1-O-alpha-anomer was a minor impurity in the muraglitazar 1-O-beta-acyl glucuronide reference standard, and not either a conversion product of 1-O-beta-acyl glucuronide or endogenously formed, the SRM transition corresponding to the loss of the glucuronide moiety was very specific for 1-O-beta-acyl glucuronide, and practically free from interference of the other isomers under optimized collision-cell conditions. As a result, extensive chromatographic separation of 1-O-beta-acyl glucuronide from its migration isomers was not required. The use of this specific SRM transition effectively reduced the separation time from 12.0 min of a long-column high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method to 2.5 min by use of a shorter column. The standard curve performance and analysis results of 1-O-beta-acyl glucuronide incubation samples showed that the short-column method could produce equivalent results to the long-column method but with a 4.5-fold improvement in sample throughput. This approach may be useful for other 1-O-beta-acyl glucuronide measurements with proper tuning of collision energy. The generation of a breakdown curve (abundance vs. collision energy) helps to define whether appropriate conditions may be selected for specific MRM transitions.