Publications by authors named "Ezel Boyaci"

Studying the functions, mechanisms, and effects of drugs and other exogenous compounds on biological systems, together with investigations performed to understand biosystems better, comprises one of the most fascinating areas of research. Although classical sample preparation techniques are dominantly used to infer the relevant information from the investigated system, they fail to meet various imperative requirements, such as being environmentally friendly, applicable in-vivo, and compatible with online analysis. As a chameleon in the analytical toolbox, solid phase microextraction (SPME) is one of the best tools available for studying biological systems in unconventional ways.

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Background: Coated blade spray (CBS) represents an innovative approach that utilizes solid-phase microextraction principles for sampling and sample preparation. When combined with ambient mass spectrometry (MS), it can also serve as an electrospray ionization source. Therefore, it became a promising tool in analytical applications as it can significantly reduce the analysis time.

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Rapid diagnosis of diseases is one of the challenging areas in clinical research. From the analytical chemist's perspective, the main challenges are isolating the compounds from the bio-specimen and lengthy analysis times. In this regard, solid phase microextraction offers a platform to address the abovementioned challenges.

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Ketoprofen (KET) is an active pharmaceutical compound that has pain relieving and antipyretic effects. Its determination in body fluids and environmental waters is important due to widespread use of the compound. In this study, a selective and reliable method has been developed for the determination of ketoprofen in water and artificial serum using molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) as a solid phase extraction sorbent prior to HPLC-DAD detection.

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This work presents an evaluation of solid-phase microextraction (SPME) SPME in combination with liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) as an analytical approach for untargeted brain analysis. The study included a characterization of the metabolite coverage provided by C18, mixed-mode (MM, with benzene sulfonic acid and C18 functionalities), and hydrophilic lipophilic balanced (HLB) particles as sorbents in SPME coatings after extraction from cow brain homogenate at static conditions. The effects of desorption solvent, extraction time, and chromatographic modes on the metabolite features detected were investigated.

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Purpose: Malignant hyperthermia (MH) is a potentially fatal hypermetabolic condition triggered by certain anesthetics and caused by defective calcium homeostasis in skeletal muscle cells. Recent evidence has revealed impairment of various biochemical pathways in MH-susceptible patients in the absence of anesthetics. We hypothesized that clinical differences between MH-susceptible and control individuals are reflected in measurable differences in myoplasmic metabolites.

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Fluoxetine is among the most prescribed antidepressant drugs worldwide. Nevertheless, limited information is known about its definitive mechanism. Although in vivo examinations performed directly in related brain structures can provide more realistic, and therefore more insightful, knowledge regarding the mechanisms and efficacy of this drug, only a few techniques are applicable for in vivo monitoring of metabolic alterations in the brain following an inducement.

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Analysis of brain samples obtained postmortem remains a standard approach in neuroscience, despite often being suboptimal for inferring roles of small molecules in the pathophysiology of brain diseases. Sample collection and preservation further hinders conclusive interpretation of biomarker analysis in autopsy samples. We investigate purely death-induced changes affecting rat hippocampus in the first hour of postmortem interval (PMI) by means of untargeted liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry-based metabolomics.

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Recently the connection between oxidative stress and various diseases, including cancer and Alzheimer's, attracts notice as a pathway suitable for diagnostic purposes. 8-Oxo-deoxyguanosine and 8-oxo-deoxyadenosine produced from the interaction of reactive oxygen species with DNA become prominent as biomarkers. Several methods have been developed for their determination in biofluids, including solid-phase extraction and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays.

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Different neuromodulators rarely act independent from each other to modify neural processes but are instead coreleased, gated, or modulated. To understand this interdependence of neuromodulators and their collective influence on local circuits during different brain states, it is necessary to reliably extract local concentrations of multiple neuromodulators in vivo. Here we describe results using solid-phase microextraction (SPME), a method providing sensitive, multineuromodulator measurements.

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Brain metabolomics is an emerging field that complements the more traditional approaches of neuroscience. However, typical brain metabolomics workflows require that animals be sacrificed and tend to involve tedious sample preparation steps. Microdialysis, the standard technique to study brain metabolites in vivo, is encumbered by significant limitations in the analysis of hydrophobic metabolites, which are prone to adsorption losses on microdialysis equipment.

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It is hard to overstate the tremendous utility of desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) and its various configurations for rapid and high-throughput analyses or spatially resolved imaging of heterogeneous systems. However, there have been few attempts to employ this technique in spatially resolved mode with solid substrates featuring extractive and analyte-enrichment properties. This study documents the development of a platform that combines solid-phase microextraction (SPME) with desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (DESI-MS) for unidimensional investigation of the heterogeneous distribution of compounds in semisolid systems (i.

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Despite the importance of monitoring and correlating neurotransmitter concentrations in the brain with observable behavior and brain areas in which they act, in vivo measurement of multiple neurochemicals in the brain remains a challenge. Here, we propose an alternative solid phase microextraction-based (SPME) chemical biopsy approach as a viable method for acquirement of quantitative information on multiple neurotransmitters by one device within a single sampling event, with multisite measurement capabilities and minimized invasiveness, as no tissue is removed. The miniaturized SPME probe developed for integrated in vivo sampling/sample preparation has been thoroughly optimized with respect to probe shape, desorption solvent, and extracting phase tailored for extraction of small hydrophilic molecules via synthesis and functionalization of the SPME coating.

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Use of solid phase microextraction (SPME) for cell culture metabolomic analysis allows for the attainment of more sophisticated data from in vitro cell cultures. Moreover, considering that SPME allows the implementation of multiple extractions from the same sample due to its non/low-depletive nature, time course studies using the same set of samples are thus facilitated via this method. Such an approach results in a reduction in the number of samples needed for analysis thus eliminates inter-batch variability related to biological variation occurring during cell culturing.

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In vitro high-throughput non-depletive quantitation of chemicals in biofluids is of growing interest in many areas. Some of the challenges facing researchers include the limited volume of biofluids, rapid and high-throughput sampling requirements, and the lack of reliable methods. Coupled to the above, growing interest in the monitoring of kinetics and dynamics of miniaturized biosystems has spurred the demand for development of novel and revolutionary methodologies for analysis of biofluids.

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Coated Blade Spray (CBS) is a technology that efficiently integrates sample preparation and direct coupling to mass spectrometry (MS) on a single device. In this article, we present CBS-tandem mass spectrometry (CBS-MS/MS) as a novel tool for the rapid and simultaneous determination of four commonly used immunosuppressive drugs (ISDs) in whole blood: tacrolimus (TAC) and cyclosporine-A (CycA), which are calcineurin inhibitors; and sirolimus (SIR) and everolimus (EVR), which are both mTOR (mechanistic target of rapamycin) inhibitors. Given that CBS extracts via free concentration, analytes that are largely bound to plasma proteins or red blood cells provide considerably lower extraction recovery rates.

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This study demonstrates the quantitative capabilities of coated blade spray (CBS) mass spectrometry (MS) for the concomitant analysis of multiple target substances in biofluid spots. In CBS-MS the analytes present in a given sample are first isolated and enriched in the thin coating of the CBS device. After a quick rinsing of the blade surface, as to remove remaining matrix, the analytes are quickly desorbed with the help of a solvent and then directly electrosprayed into the MS analyzer.

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The widespread use of pharmaceuticals in both human and animal populations, and the resultant contamination of surface waters from the outflow of water treatment facilities is an issue of growing concern. This has raised the need for analytical methods that can both perform rapid sample analysis and overcome the limitations of conventional analysis procedures, such as multistep workflows and tedious procedures. Coated blade spray (CBS) is a solid-phase microextraction based technique that enables the direct-to-mass-spectrometry analysis of extracted compounds via the use of limited organic solvent to desorb analytes and perform electrospray ionization.

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Most contemporary methods of screening and quantitating controlled substances and therapeutic drugs in biofluids typically require laborious, time-consuming, and expensive analytical workflows. In recent years, our group has worked toward developing microextraction (μe)-mass spectrometry (MS) technologies that merge all of the tedious steps of the classical methods into a simple, efficient, and low-cost methodology. Unquestionably, the automation of these technologies allows for faster sample throughput, greater reproducibility, and radically reduced analysis times.

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To date, solid-phase microextraction (SPME) fibers used for in vivo bioanalysis can be too fragile and flexible, which limits suitability for direct tissue sampling. As a result, these devices often require a sheathing needle to prepuncture robust sample matrixes and protect the extraction phase from mechanical damage. To address this limitation, a new SPME device is herein presented which incorporates an extraction phase recessed into the body of a solid needle.

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Voriconazole is a triazole broad-spectrum antifungal medication often used to treat fungal infections caused by Aspergillus and Fusarium species. One of the main challenges associated with the implementation of this medication is its narrow therapeutic concentration range, demonstrating toxicity at concentrations above 6μg/mL and limited efficacy at concentrations below 2μg/mL. As a result, methodologies which permit the rapid and accurate quantitation of voriconazole in patients are highly desirable.

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In this work, a new generation of solid-phase microextraction (SPME) coatings based on polytetrafluoroethylene amorphous fluoroplastics (PTFE AF 2400) as a particle binder is presented. The developed coating was tested for thermal and solvent-assisted desorption, demonstrating its compatibility with both gas- and liquid-chromatographic platforms. The incorporation of hydrophilic-lipophilic balance (HLB) adsorptive particles provided optimal extraction coverage for analytes bearing a broad range of hydrophobicities and molecular weights and of varied chemical diversity.

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Time weighted average (TWA) passive sampling with thin film solid phase microextraction (TF-SPME) and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was used for collection, identification, and quantification of benzophenone-1, benzophenone-2, benzophenone-3, benzophenone-4, 2-phenylbenzimidazole-5-sulfonic acid, octocrylene, octylmethoxycinnamate, butylmethoxydibenzoylmethane, triclocarban and triclosan in the aquatic environment. Two types of TF-SPME passive samplers, including a retracted thin film device using a hydrophilic lipophilic balance (HLB) coating, and an open bed configuration with an octadecyl silica-based (C18)coating, were evaluated in an aqueous standard generation system. Laboratory calibration results indicated that the thin film retracted device using HLB coating is suitable to determine TWA concentrations of polar analytes in water, with an uptake that was linear up to 70 days.

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Herein we report the development of solid-phase microextraction (SPME) devices designed to perform fast extraction/enrichment of target analytes present in small volumes of complex matrices (i.e. V≤10 μL).

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