TY - JOUR A1 - Pawellek, Ruben A1 - Krmar, Jovana A1 - Leistner, Adrian A1 - Djajić, Nevena A1 - Otašević, Biljana A1 - Protić, Ana A1 - Holzgrabe, Ulrike T1 - Charged aerosol detector response modeling for fatty acids based on experimental settings and molecular features: a machine learning approach JF - Journal of Cheminformatics N2 - The charged aerosol detector (CAD) is the latest representative of aerosol-based detectors that generate a response independent of the analytes' chemical structure. This study was aimed at accurately predicting the CAD response of homologous fatty acids under varying experimental conditions. Fatty acids from C12 to C18 were used as model substances due to semivolatile characterics that caused non-uniform CAD behaviour. Considering both experimental conditions and molecular descriptors, a mixed quantitative structure-property relationship (QSPR) modeling was performed using Gradient Boosted Trees (GBT). The ensemble of 10 decisions trees (learning rate set at 0.55, the maximal depth set at 5, and the sample rate set at 1.0) was able to explain approximately 99% (Q\(^2\): 0.987, RMSE: 0.051) of the observed variance in CAD responses. Validation using an external test compound confirmed the high predictive ability of the model established (R-2: 0.990, RMSEP: 0.050). With respect to the intrinsic attribute selection strategy, GBT used almost all independent variables during model building. Finally, it attributed the highest importance to the power function value, the flow rate of the mobile phase, evaporation temperature, the content of the organic solvent in the mobile phase and the molecular descriptors such as molecular weight (MW), Radial Distribution Function-080/weighted by mass (RDF080m) and average coefficient of the last eigenvector from distance/detour matrix (Ve2_D/Dt). The identification of the factors most relevant to the CAD responsiveness has contributed to a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of signal generation. An increased CAD response that was obtained for acetone as organic modifier demonstrated its potential to replace the more expensive and environmentally harmful acetonitrile. KW - High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) KW - Charged aerosol detector (CAD) KW - Gradient boosted trees (GBT) KW - Quantitative structure-property relationship modeling (QSPR) KW - Fatty acids Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-261618 VL - 13 IS - 1 ER -