Ecdysteroids: one potential new anabolic family in breeding animals Original Research Article

Ecdysteroids, polyhydroxylated Δ7–8-6-ketosteroids, are widespread in plants and invertebrates, especially arthropods. As early as the 1960s, several studies underlined the potential of ecdysterone to enhance the rate of protein synthesis in mammalian tissue. For these suspected anabolic properties, ecdysteroids such as ecdysone or ajugasterone, are widely diffused on the Internet and are presented as powerful growth promoters without any hormonal consequences. Because these compounds would be potentially used as anabolizing agents in food producing animals, it was necessary to develop an efficient analytical method dedicated to their analysis in biological matrices gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) was compared to liquid chromatography (LC)–MS for this purpose. Ecdysteroids, because of their numerous alcohol functions produced, after derivatisation, various by-products, making the GC–MS interpretation difficult. LC–MS was more appropriate, especially when positive electrospray ionization (ESI) and MS/MS acquisition were used; detection and identification (4 MRM transitions) limits were determined in the pg range.