Screening and quantification of 146 veterinary drug residues in beef and chicken using QuEChERS combined with high performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole orbitrap mass spectrometry

Abstract

This work aimed to develop an integrated high-throughput screening and quantification for multi-class veterinary drug residues by HPLC-Q-Orbitrap mass spectrometry. A qualitative screening mass database of 171 veterinary drugs was created using full scanning mode, which improved the screening accuracy and scope. Beef and chicken samples were chosen to validate the quantification method at three spiked concentration levels. The quantification method of 146 veterinary drug residues was developed. After enzymatic hydrolysis, beef and chicken samples were treated using optimized QuEChERS. The calibration curves showed good linearities with correlation coefficients of 0.9921-0.9994. The recovery rates were within 52.1-138.2 % with relative standard deviations 0.4-17.7 %. The limits of detection and limits of quantification were in the range of 0.15-3.03 μg/kg and 0.5-10 μg/kg, respectively. The proposed method was demonstrated to be reliable for the simultaneous analysis of multi-class veterinary drugs. It is of significance to expand the screening scope and quantitative analysis efficiency.

Keywords: Beef; Chicken; HPLC-Q-Orbitrap HRMS; QuEChERS; Quantification; Screening; Veterinary drug.