The high-pressure gas (HPG) method with carbon monoxide (CO) and oxygen (O₂) mixture maintains the preserved rat heart function. The metabolites of rat hearts preserved using the HPG method (HPG group) and cold storage (CS) method (CS group) by immersion in a stock solution for 24 h were assessed to confirm CO and O₂ effects. Lactic acid was significantly lower and citric acid was significantly higher in the HPG group than in the CS group. Moreover, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels as well as some pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) metabolites and reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) were significantly higher in the HPG group than in the CS group. Additionally, reduced glutathione (GSH), which protects cells from oxidative stress, was also significantly higher in the HPG group than in the CS group. These results indicated that each gas, CO and O₂, induced the shift from anaerobic to aerobic metabolism, maintaining the energy of ischemic preserved organs, shifting the glucose utilization from glycolysis toward PPP, and reducing oxidative stress. Both CO and O₂ in the HPG method have important effects on the ATP supply and decrease oxidative stress for preventing ischemic injury. The HPG method may be useful for clinical application.

Purpose: The present study aims to develop a forensic toxicological library to identify 56 natural toxic substances by liquid chromatography–quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (LC–QTOF-MS/MS). Methods: For setting up the library of product ion spectra, individual substances (31 plant toxins, 7 mushroom toxins, 5 marine toxins, 5 frog venoms, 4 mycotoxins, and 4 substances derived from plants) were analyzed by LC–QTOF-MS/MS with positive and negative ionization. The product ion spectra were acquired at the collision energies (CEs) of 20, 35, and 50 eV in single enhanced product ion mode and then in collision energy spread mode in which the CE ramp range was set to 35 ± 15 eV. Results: To test the performance of the library, human blood plasma samples were spiked with a mixture of lycorine and domoic acid, extracted by acetonitrile deproteinization and analyzed by LC–QTOF-MS/MS. Identification by our library search could be achieved for these toxins at the purity scores of 79.1 and 67.2, respectively. The method was also applied to postmortem blood from a death case with an aconite intake, and showed that four toxins in an aconite could be identified in the blood sample at the purity scores of 54.6–60.3. Conclusions: This library will be more effective for the screening of natural toxic substances in routine forensic toxicological analysis. To our knowledge, there are no reports dealing with development of library for natural toxic substances by LC–QTOF-MS/MS.

A rapid and sensitive method for analysis of blonanserin in human plasma by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry is presented. After pretreatment of a plasma sample by solid-phase extraction, blonanserin was analyzed by the system with a C18 column. This method gave satisfactory recovery rates, reproducibility, and good linearity of calibration curve in the range of 0.01 – 10.0 ng/mL for quality control samples spiked with blonanserin. The detection limit was as low as 1 pg/mL. This method seems very useful in forensic and clinical toxicology and pharmacokinetic studies.