Boldenone [KLH]

Detection of anabolic steroids in animal urine samples is currently performed with GC-MS in our lab. However we found that the detection of 17alpha-trenbolone (17alpha-TbOH), 4-chloroandrost-4-ene-3,17-dion (CLAD), 16-beta-OH-stanozolol (160Hstan) and alpha- and beta-boldenone (alpha-Bol, beta-Bol) was very difficult, if not impossible. Therefore a sensitive, specific and selective qualitative multi-analyte LC-MS-MS method was developed. The LC separation was achieved by using a Symmetry(R) C-18 column and methanol-water-formic acid (54.7-44.7-0.6) as a mobile phase at a flow-rate of 0.3 ml/min. The mass spectrometer was operated in multiple reaction monitoring mode with positive electrospray interface. Validation of the method was done according to draft SANCO/1805/2000 Rev. 1 and a CCbeta smaller then 1 ng/ml was obtained for each compound. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

For over a decade there has been an intensive debate on the possible natural origin of boldenone (androst-1,4-diene-17 beta-ol-3-one, 17 beta-boldenone) in calf urine and several alternative markers to discriminate between endogenously formed boldenone and exogenously administered boldenone have been suggested. The currently approved method for proving illegal administration of beta-boldenone(ester) is the detection of P-boldenone conjugates. In the presented method the sulphate, glucuronide and free fractions are separated from each other during cleanup on a SAX column to be able to determine the conjugated status of the boldenone metabolites. The sulphate and glucuronide fractions are submitted to hydrolysis and all three fractions are further cleaned up on a combination of C-18/NH2 solid-phase extraction (SPE) columns. Chromatographic separation of the boldenone metabolites was achieved with a Waters Acquity UPLC (TM) instrument using a Sapphire C-18 (1.7 mu m; 2 x 50 mm) column within 5 min. Detection of the analytes was achieved by electrospray ionisation tandem mass spectrometry. The decision limits of this method, validated according to Commission Decision 2002/657/EC, were 0.08 ng mL(-1) for androsta-1,4-diene-3,17-dione, 0.13 ng mL(-1) for androst4-ene-3,17-dione, 0.11 ng mL(-1) for 17 alpha-boldenone, 0.07 ng mL(-1) for 17 beta-boldenone, 0.24 ng mL(-1) for 5 beta-androst-1-en-17 beta-ol-3-one and 0.58 ng mL(-1) for 6 beta-hydroxy-17 beta-boldenone. Because of the fractionation approach used in this method there is no need for conjugated reference standards which often are not available. The disadvantage of needing three analytical runs to determine the conjugated status of each of the metabolites was overcome by using fast chromatography. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.