Determination of 23 β2-agonists and 5 β-blockers in animal muscle by high performance liquid chromatography-linear ion trap mass spectrometry

Abstract

A high performance liquid chromatography-linear ion trap mass spectrometry method using isotope dilution technique has been developed for the simultaneous determination of 23 β2-agonists and 5 β-blockers in animal muscle tissues. Pork and chicken muscle samples were acid hydrolyzed and extracted with 5% trichloracetic acid in water, and then cleaned up using MCX solid phase extraction (SPE) cartridge. Methanol and 0.1% formic acid were used as mobile phases for gradient elution. A Waters Atlantis®T3 column was used for separation. ESI positive ion scan mode was used with selective reaction monitoring. 9 β2-Agonists labeled by the deuterium isotope were used as internal standards for quantification. The linear ranges of 23 β2-agonists and 5 β-blockers were 5–200 μg/L, the coefficient of correlation was not less than 0.995, and the limit of detection for each compound in the muscle tissue was below 0.2 μg/kg. The recoveries of each compound in the spiked samples at three levels 5, 10, 20 μg/kg were in the range of 47.3%–123.7%, and the relative standard deviations were in the range of 3.2%–25.7%. The developed method is sensitive and specific for the determination of β2-agonists and β-blockers in pork and chicken muscle samples.