Utilization of hydrophilic-interaction LC to minimize matrix effects caused by phospholipids

Background: In bioanalysis, phospholipids may affect the precision and accuracy of LC–MS/MS methods and compromise the quality of the results, especially when samples in complex biomatrices are extracted by protein precipitation techniques. Results: It was found that the retentive behavior of both common pharmaceuticals and physiologically relevant phospholipids under bare silica hydrophilic-interaction LC (HILIC) is more predictable than under reversed-phase conditions. In particular, the retention time of phospholipids was not significantly affected by varying the salt and acid modifiers in the mobile phases, but common pharmaceuticals can be shifted away from these phospholipid interferences through mobile phase modifiers. Several mass...