A COMPUTER-PROGRAM FOR THE DECONVOLUTION OF MASS-SPECTRAL PEAK ABUNDANCE DATA FROM EXPERIMENTS USING STABLE ISOTOPES

A computer program is described for deconvoluting the overlap which is often found in mass spectral peak abundance data from stable isotope experiments. Peak intensity data from calibration standards are corrected using parameters calculated from the analysis of separate external standard solutions of analytes and internal standard. If the calibration data are satisfactory, the same parameters and the slope and intercept values from the least squares analysis of the calibration data are used to correct and quantitate the mass spectral peak intensity data from the quality assurance and experimental samples. Reports and graphs appropriate to the process are produced. Applications are given for the analysis of plasma samples from stable isotope experiments with carprofen, cifenline, and midazolam.