samples were chromatographically resolved using a Kinetex EVO C18
column on a Shimadzu UPLC system (Columbia, MD, USA) and were analyzed
by a Sciex triple quadrupole 6500+ mass spectrometer with a TurboIonSpray
source (Foster City, CA, USA) under the conditions described in a
previous study by Wei et al.25 (link) Analyst
software (version 1.7.0) was used for chromatographic data acquisition,
and MultiQuant (version 3.0.3) was employed to process the analytic
data and to quantitate the sample concentrations. Calibration curves
were constructed using peak area ratios of analytes to corresponding
internal standards for each batch via linear least-squares regression
with a 1/x weighting factor.