Study of the Stability of Sulfur Mustard–Plasma Protein Adducts by Gas Chromatography–Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

A rapid procedure for determining adducts of sulfur mustard (SM) with blood plasma proteins is developed and validated. The procedure is based on the isolation, washing, and drying of proteins from 0.5 mL of blood plasma, the hydrolysis of dry proteins with conc. hydrochloric acid, the addition of naphthalene-D₈ as an internal standard, the extraction of SM and naphthalene-D₈ with hexane, and the concentration of the extract under nitrogen to 0.05 mL followed by —an analysis by GC–MS/MS. The procedure showed good linearity for the analyte concentrations 1–100 ng mL^–1, acceptable reproducibility, and proven selectivity (no matrix effects were observed). The limit of detection and the limit of quantitation for spiked plasma samples were 0.5 and 1 ng mL^–1, respectively. The developed procedure was used to investigate the stability of blood plasma exposed to SM after 35 days of storage at 4 and 30°C. A possibility of the detection of SM in blood plasma in concentrations from 5 to 50 ng mL^–1 was maintained for 35 days regardless of the sample storage temperature.