Determination of 10 heterocyclic aromatic amines in beef jerky by high performance liquid chromatography

Abstract

An analytical method was developed for the simultaneous determination of 10 heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs) in beef jerky by solid phase extraction-high performance liquid chromatography (SPE-HPLC). The HAAs were eluted from an Extrelut NT 20 SPE column with 60 mL dichlormethane (containing 5% toluene), and then the extract was purified with a propylsulfonic acid silica (PRS) column and a C18 SPE column, and finally, the HAAs were stored in a methanol-ammonia solution. The separation was achieved by using a TSK-gel ODS-80 column and a gradient elution with the mobile phases of acetonitrile and 0.05 mol/L acetic acid-ammonium acetate buffer (pH 3.5). The identification and quantitative analysis of the HAAs fraction were carried out using an HPLC system with ultraviolet-fluorescence detectors. The results showed that the correlation coefficients of the 10 HAAs were all above 0.999 and the limits of detection were in the range from 0.02 to 2.46 ng/g. The recoveries of the 10 HAAs spiked in beef samples were 61.69% - 101.81% with the relative standard deviations (RSDs) between 0.28% and 7.81%. 1-Methyl-9H-pyrido[4,3-b] indole (Harman) and 9H-pyrido [4,3-b]indole (Norharman) were detected in all beef jerky, and the total HAAs content of beef jerky were between 16.65 and 60.38 ng/g. This method is with wide linear range and high sensitivity, and is enough for the analysis of the HAAs in actual meat samples.