Exactive orbitrap analyzer

LC-MS/MS analysis was carried out at the Analytics, Robotics and Chemical Biology Centre (SPARC BioCentre), the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada using—Exactive Orbitrap analyzer outfitted with a nanospray source and EASY-nLC nano-LC system (Thermo Fisher, San Jose, CA, USA), as reported by Udenigwe et al. [47 (link)] PEAKS X+ software (Bioinformatic Solutions, Waterloo, ON, Canada) was used to perform the data analysis.

A Reax 2 rotatory shaker from Heidolph (Schwabach, Germany) was used to extract polar pesticides from the samples. WX vortex from Velp Scientifica (Usmate, Italy) and a Polytron PT 2100 from Kinematica (Luzern, Switzerland) were utilized for the homogenization of the samples. To centrifuge the extracts, a Centronic-PL II centrifuge from JP Selecta (Barcelona, Spain) was used.
For the analysis of the targeted compounds, Thermo Fisher Scientific Transcend 600 LC (Thermo Scientific Transcend™, Thermo Fisher Scientific, San Jose, CA, USA) was utilized. LC system was coupled to a high resolution single mass spectrometer Exactive-Orbitrap analyzer (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Bremen, Germany) and ionization was performed using an electrospray interface (ESI) (HESI-II, Thermo Fisher Scientific, San Jose, CA, USA).
The chromatographic separation was carried out with a Torus DEA column (100 × 2.1 mm, 1.7 µm particle size) (Waters, Milford, MA, USA). Moreover, four columns were also tested during the optimization of the method: Obelisc N (100 × 2.1 mm, 5 µm particle size) (Sielc, Wheeling, IL, USA), HILIC-A (250 × 4.6 mm, 3 µm particle size) (ACE, Aberdeen, Scotland), HILIC-B (250 × 4.6 mm, 3 µm particle size) (ACE) and Zorbax HILIC Plus (100 × 2.1 mm, 3.5 µm particle size) (Agilent, Santa Clara, CA, USA).