STORAGE OF WORKING STANDARDS IN POLYPROPYLENE CONTAINERS, ITS EFFECT, CONTAMINANTS AND IMPACT ON ANALYSIS ON LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY TANDEM MASS SPECTROSCOPY

Authors propose a method to determine the contamination caused during the storage of colchicine stock solution, which will be helpful for the bioanalytical scientists. The process of identification of impurities, exceptionally in this case, started from the point of optimization of the compound, where in the parent ion was not detected and instead an unknown mass is being interpreted by the detector, which was further identified as a plasticizer but not as colchicine. To reconfirm the contamination by the plasticizer, a commercially available colchicine tablet was powdered and extracted with methanol and infused in Q1 MS scan mode. The supernatant solution of Colchicine extract has resulted in a transition of 400.41 m/z which was found to be more predominant. Again the tuning solution of working standard was infused with the same parameters, the same contamination parent peak was found and in addition to this experiment, confirmation against the product ion was also performed, where in the mass transition is found to be 149.177 m/z. Finally, it was found to be a phthalate (Bis (2-3ethylhexyl) phthalate) contamination. The source of contamination was found to be a low density polypropylene container, where the stock solution was stored. Researchers conclude the cause of contamination and hope this research publication will guide the analysts going into further research in colchicine.