IDENTIFICATION OF DRUG METABOLITES IN BIOLOGICAL MATRICES BY INTELLIGENT AUTOMATED LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY TANDEM MASS-SPECTROMETRY

A rapid and systematic strategy for the identification of drug metabol ites in biological matrices based on liquid chromatography - tandem ma ss spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) techniques was utilized for the identificat ion of drug metabolites of the HIV protease inhibitor Indinavir, This strategy integrates intelligent realtime mass spectrometry with HPLC d etection and a predictive strategy for detecting metabolites arising f rom common biotransformations, to rapidly elucidate structures of drug metabolites. Structures of metabolites generated from in vitro incuba tion mixtures of Indinavir were characterized from a single chromatogr aphic analysis using the automated LC/MS/MS methodology, thus reducing data acquisition time and improving efficiency. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.