Simultaneous Detection of 46 Veterinary Drug Residues in Animal Meat by UHPLC

Abstract

A novel UHPLC–MS/MS approach, using multi-period multiple-reaction monitoring (mpMRM), was developed for the detection of 46 veterinary drugs including representative beta-agonists, quinolones, sulfonamides, tetracyclines in food of animal origin samples. A simple procedure based on protein precipitation associated with ultrafiltration was employed to realize a generic sample preparation for food of animal origin. In particular, multi-period multiple-reaction monitoring (mpMRM) was developed as a MS scan mode for veterinary drugs to meet the requirements of qualitative and quantitative detection of multiple veterinary drug residues and improve sensitivity and reliability in this method. Furthermore, the method was fully validated for all 46 drugs, and the specificity, linearity, limit of detection, limit of quantification, accuracy and precision results are good. Using the developed method, 30 pork samples and 20 beef samples were analysed, and the result is consistent with that using GB methods (National standard method of the People’s Republic of China) but using less time, which demonstrates that our developed method is not only accurate and reliable, but also greatly improves the cost-effectiveness of the analytical procedures. This approach not only is much more effective than the traditional sample preparation method, but also provides data on four classes of veterinary drugs in one analytical run, which enabled high-throughput and efficiency. The obtained results proved the usefulness of the method as applied in the field of residue analysis.