Qualitative study of in vivo melphalan adduct formation in the rat by miniaturized column-switching liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray mass spectrometry

Abstract

In a general study of DNA adduct formation with melphalan, rats were intravenously injected with a single high dose (10 mg kg-1). Adduct formation was studied at the nucleoside level in the target organs liver, bone marrow, kidney and blood with the use of 2D liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS). Adducts of dGuo and dAdo were detected under selected reaction monitoring in liver and bone marrow 10 h after administration of melphalan. In the DNA hydrolysates from kidney and blood a Gua-melphalan adduct was found, although in very low abundance. These first results of the search for in vivo-formed melphalan adducts in the rat showed that our miniaturized LC/MS technique is useful for investigating this type of compound. More experiments will be performed in this area to gather more information about the pharmacokinetics and the quantity of adducts formed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.