Ultra-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry for the Determination of Coenzyme Q₁₀ as an Anti-Aging Ingredient in Edible Cosmetics

Abstract

A simple and rapid method for the determination of coenzyme Q₁₀ in edible cosmetics was developed and validated. Cleanup utilizing a solid-phase extraction technique provided a simple and reliable method for extracting both coenzyme Q₁₀ and its internal standard coenzyme Q₉ from the lecithin-rich samples with efficiencies of 92 ± 4% and 89 ± 3%, respectively. The separation of analytes through a reversed-phase C₁₈ column was carried out within 10 min. By employing authentic coenzyme Q₁₀ and the internal standard spiked into blank matrices, the combined use of solid phase extraction cleanup and chromatographic separation coupled with electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry detection was shown to be sufficiently accurate to detect coenzyme Q₁₀ in edible cosmetic matrices. The limit of quantification of coenzyme Q₁₀ determined by the validated method was 54 ng/g in the matrices. In addition, the intra- and inter-day precision was <4% and the accuracy ranged from 87.1 to 92.3%. Quantitative results for coenzyme Q₁₀ levels in two different edible cosmetic samples obtained by the established analytical protocol were reproducible. This is the first report of the determination of coenzyme Q₁₀ in lipophilic edible cosmetic matrices by liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry.

Keywords:

• Coenzyme Q₁₀
• Edible cosmetics
• Solid-phase extraction
• UPLC-ESI-MS/MS

Notes

^a Mean ± SD (n = 5).

J. H. Lee and N. H. Hoang contributed equally to this work.

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