General Unknown Screening

Mass Spectrometry Applications-General Unknown Screening

Mass Spectrometry Applications

Multi-target screening (MTS) and general unknown screening (GUS) are both useful workflows in forensic toxicology. Typically, there is a relatively small subset of substances that are heavily used and abused, making a targeted approach the most useful because of its ability to detect drugs at low concentrations and relative ease of data processing and interpretation. If drugs have not been identified as frequently used or abused substances, they will not be on the target compound list and their use can remain undetected. General unknown screening is therefore a complementary screening technique in forensic toxicology. GUS has the ability to detect and identify unexpected drugs, drug analogs, and drug metabolites for forensic toxicology testing.

For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.

GUS experiments generate a great deal of complex data that requires sophisticated software to streamline the workflow. Cliquid® software can simplify the acquisition, processing, and reporting of GUS results. The software generates extracted ion chromatograms at every mass, identifies chromatographic peaks, and determines if an MS/MS spectrum for that peak was obtained. If an MS/MS spectrum exists, it will be searched against a spectral library and any match reported, as shown in the example GUS report in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Sample GUS report

Figure 1: Sample GUS report.

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