Fe3O4@UiO-66 as solid-phase extraction sorbent coupled with Nano-ESI-MS for the analysis of androgens in serum

High-throughput sample preparation is important in clinical mass spectrometry (MS) analysis. In this work, we developed a method by coupling Nano-ESI-MS with magnetic SPE using a MOF material, Fe3O4@UiO-66, as sorbent for simultaneous determination of testosterone (T) and androstenedione (4-AD) in serum samples. The proposed method presented good linearity in the range of 0.1–5 μg/L and the recoveries of serum samples were 90.7%-110.0% and 101.7%-108.7% for T and 4-AD, respectively. The results indicated that the Fe3O4@UiO-66 is an ideal sorbent for androgens extraction and the method is reliable for high-throughput quantitation of T and 4-AD in clinical applications.