Detection of insulins in postmortem tissues: an optimized workflow based on immunopurification and LC–MS/HRMS detection

Diabetes is a worldwide disease in perpetual expansion. Type 1 and sometimes type 2 diabetic patients require daily human insulin (HI) or analog administration. Easy access to insulins for insulin-treated diabetics, their relatives, medical professionals can enable abuse suicidal homicidal purpose. However, demonstrating overdose postmortem blood challenging. Tissue analyses are contributive, as accumulate before death undergo only limited degradation. The present study describes an assay HI synthetic analogs (lispro, aspart, glulisine, detemir degludec, glargine its main metabolite (M1)) liver, kidney, muscle, injection site samples. It based on 5-step sample preparation (reduction of tissue size, homogenization, extraction, concentration, immunopurification) associated with liquid chromatography coupled high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC–MS/HRMS). Selectivity limit detection (LOD) all target were assessed the above matrices. LOD was determined at 25 ng/g except where 50 kidney samples 80 liver muscle. method applied to13 forensic cases which use suspected.