Steroids in Reproduction: LC-MS-MS and GC (-MS) Based Steroidomics

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Stefan Alexander Wudy
• Subject Area: Animal Breeding, Animal Nutrition, Animal Husbandry
• Term: from 2010 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 152381467

Determination of steroid sulfates with highest reliability is a prerequisite for the realization of theResearch Unit Sulfated Steroids in Reproduction. CS, PREGS, DHEAS and E1S will be the mainanalytes requested. It is planned to carry out the qualitative and quantitative determination of thesecompounds by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS), which currentlypresents the analytical first line approach for the analysis of the intact conjugated steroids. Since –with the exception of DHEAS – suitable procedures based on LC-MS-MS do not exist, our first aimwill consist in developing an analytical method for multi-targeted metabolic profiling of the abovementioned steroid conjugates using latest technical developments and improvements in samplepreparation and mass spectrometric analysis. Excellent equipment of our laboratory with one of thebest currently available new LC-MS-MS systems (TSQ Qantum Ultra, ThermoFisher) will permitdevelopment of a highly selective TurboFlow-FAIMS-MS-MS based analytical procedure. Togetherwith the use of stable isotope labeled analogs of the analytes as internal standards, this analyticalapproach will allow for a maximally improved elucidation of reproductive mechanisms at themetabolic level. In a second stage, this newly developed analytical method will be applied to theanalysis of biological samples mentioned in the individual research proposals of the collaboratingprincipal investigators.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 1369: Sulfated Steroids in Reproduction
• Major Instrumentation: GC/MS System
• Instrumentation Group: 1700 Massenspektrometer