Rapid screening and identification of food poisonings by ultra high performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole-time of flight mass spectrometry

Abstract

A method was developed for the screening and detection of food poisonings by ultra high performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole-time of flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-TOF MS). After extracted by acetonitrile and cleaned-up by QuEChERS, the extract was separated on a Waters Acquity UPLC BEH C18 column (100 mm×2.1 mm, 1.7 μm) with the gradient elution of 0.1% (v/v) formic acid in water and 0.1% (v/v) formic acid in acetonitrile. TOF-MS scan-information dependent acquisition (IDA)-product ion scan was performed in positive electrospray ionization (ESI) mode to acquire high resolution MS and MS/MS spectra in one injection, and rapidly screen 581 target compounds by SCIEX OS software, including 546 pesticides, 24 mycotoxins, 11 rodenticides. The target compounds were qualitatively confirmed by mass accuracy of precursor, isotope distribution of precursor, fragment ions of precursor, and library search. Carbofuran was detected in 9 out of 11 samples with the proposed method. The retention time was further confirmed by the standard of carbofuran. The results showed the retention times were coincident between the samples and reference standard, and the deviations of accurate mass numbers were all less than 3.7×10-6. The scope of the relationship was good and the correlation coefficient was 0.998. The instrumental limit of detection (S/N=3) was 0.3 μg/kg, and the limit of quantification (S/N=10) was 1 μg/kg. The recoveries at 10, 50, 200 μg/kg levels were 75.6%-95.9%, and the RSDs (n=6) were 3.6%-6.9%. The method is rapid, simple, accurate and sensitive. It is suitable for the rapid screening and detection of public safety incidents.