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An LCMS method for the assay of melittin in cosmetic formulations containing bee venom

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Abstract

There is a growing interest in the potential of bee venom in cosmetics as a rejuvenating agent. Products currently on the market do not specify exactly their content of bee venom (BV). Therefore, we developed a method for the detection and quantification of melittin, as a marker of bee venom content, in selected commercial creams which contained BV according to their marketing claims, in order to gauge the relative quality of such formulations. A quantitative method was achieved following a rigorous extraction procedure involving sonication, liquid-liquid extraction and solid phase extraction since carryover of excipients was found to cause a rapid deterioration in the chromatographic performance. The method employed a standard additions approach using, as spiking standard, purified melittin isolated from bee venom and standardised by quantitative NMR. The aqueous extracts of the spiked creams were analysed by reversed phase LCMS on an LTQ Orbitrap mass spectrometer. The purity of the melittin spiking standard was determined to be 96.0 %. The lowest measured mean melittin content in the creams was 3.19 ppm (±1.58 ppm 95 % CI) while the highest was 37.21 ppm (±2.01 ppm 95 % CI). The method showed adequate linearity (R 2 ≥ 0.98) and a recovery of 87.7–102.2 % from a spiked blank cream. An assay precision of <20 % RSD was achieved for all but one sample where the RSD value was 27.5 %. The method was sensitive enough for use in routine assay of BV-containing cosmetic creams. Differences in the melittin content of the commercial products assayed were nearly tenfold.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Korean Government KIAT scheme and Wissen Co. for the support for the work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, University of Strathclyde, 161 Cathedral Street, Glasgow, G4 0RE, UK

    Jonans Tusiimire, Carol J. Clements, Louise Young & David G. Watson

  2. Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry, University of Strathclyde, 295 Cathedral Street, Glasgow, G1 1XL, UK

    Jennifer Wallace, Mark Dufton & John Parkinson

  3. Wissen Company, 410 Bio Venture Town, Yuseong Daero 1662, 305, Dae Jeon, South Korea

    Jin Kyu Park & Jong Woon Jeon

Authors
  1. Jonans Tusiimire
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  2. Jennifer Wallace
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  3. Mark Dufton
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  4. John Parkinson
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  5. Carol J. Clements
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  6. Louise Young
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  7. Jin Kyu Park
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  8. Jong Woon Jeon
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  9. David G. Watson
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Correspondence to David G. Watson.

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Tusiimire, J., Wallace, J., Dufton, M. et al. An LCMS method for the assay of melittin in cosmetic formulations containing bee venom. Anal Bioanal Chem 407, 3627–3635 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-015-8578-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-015-8578-5

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