Determination of Avermectins Residues in Soybean, Bean, and Maize Using a QuEChERS-Based Method and Ultra-High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Coupled to Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Fernanda Uczay,Luana Floriano,Nelson M G Bandeira,Martha B Adaime,Renato Zanella,Osmar D Prestes

doi:10.3390/separations8110214

Abstract

Soybean, maize, and bean are crops of great economic importance, but in recent years have suffered with infestations of the caterpillar Helicoverpa armigera, with the main reason being the resistance of this pest to most pesticides. Avermectin emamectin benzoate was recently released to control this pest. Other avermectins, like abamectin, doramectin, eprinomectin, and ivermectin are used in large scale because they potent acaricidal, anthelmintic, and insecticidal activities. Thus, a simple and fast method for the determination of avermectins in these crops based on a quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe (QuEChERS) extraction procedure and ultra-high performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) analysis was developed and validated. For extraction, water followed by acetonitrile:isopropanol and a partition step with salts was stablished. With the clean-up step using activated EMR-Lipid, limits of detection of 1.2 μg kg−1 for abamectin, doramectin, emamectin benzoate, and ivermectin, and of 2.4 μg kg−1 for eprinomectin were achieved. The validation showed satisfactory results and the method was successfully applied to commercial samples, indicating that it is suitable for routine analysis.

Highlights

Soybean (Glycine max) is among the most important crops in the world and their demand increases every year, as long as soybean may be applied for animal feed and biodiesel production to raw material for cosmetics [1]
Abamectin is a blend of avermectin B1a (≥80%) and B1b (≤20%), and emamectin benzoate, a novel avermectin derivative developed as a pesticide, is a mixture of B1a (≥90%) and emamectin B1b (≤10%)
Giving the importance of avermectins residue analysis in soybean, bean, and maize crops, the aim of this work was to develop a suitable method for determination of residues of the avermectins abamectin, doramectin, emamectin benzoate, eprinomectin, and ivermectin in soybean, maize, and bean crops using the same sample preparation step in order to simplify the execution in routine analyses

Summary

Introduction

Soybean (Glycine max) is among the most important crops in the world and their demand increases every year, as long as soybean may be applied for animal feed and biodiesel production to raw material for cosmetics [1]. Maize (Zea mays) has its economic importance related to various forms of use, from animal feed to high technology industry. Avermectins are a family of natural products with a large macrocyclic lactone ring consisting of four major components (A1a, A2a, B1a, and B2a) and four minor components (A1b, A2b, B1b, and B2b) isolated from the fermentation broth of Streptomyces avermectinius. Doramectin, emamectin benzoate, eprinomectin, and ivermectin are avermectins used in a large scale because they present potent acaricidal, anthelmintic, and insecticidal activities [2,3]. Abamectin is a blend of avermectin B1a (≥80%) and B1b (≤20%), and emamectin benzoate, a novel avermectin derivative developed as a pesticide, is a mixture of B1a (≥90%) and emamectin B1b (≤10%)

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Conclusion