Analysis of Tetracycline, Oxytetracycline and Chlortetracycline in Plasma Extracts by Electrospray Tandem Mass-Spectrometry and by Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

Pure standards of tetracyclines (tetracycline, oxytetracycline and chlortetracycline) have been analyzed on a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer with Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Ionization (APCI) and Electrospray Ionization (ESI). ESI appeared to be considerably more sensitive than APCI. Collisional activation of the MH⁺ ions gave fragment ions at m/z values equal to MH⁺ - 35 which corresponds to loss of both H₂O and NH₃. The collisionally induced loss of 35 from MH⁺ was used in developing a mass spectrometric method based on loop injection and selected reaction monitoring (SRM) as the final analytical step. The method was tested on extracts from fortified plasma and the measurements from the MS-MS analysis were compared with results from High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) analysis of the same samples. The fortified plasma (from pig) samples were purified by chelate affinity chromatography (amberlite XAD columns). After filtration and evaporation of the solvent the redissolved residues were analyzed by HPLC and by MS-MS with ESI. The HPLC eluates (gradient of 0.01 M aqueous oxalic acid and CH₃CN) were monitored at 356 and 369 nm. The signal to noise ratio in the analyses of extracts from plasma fortified to 20 ppb suggests a detection limit for the MS-MS method below 10 ppb of tetracylines in plasma.

Key Words:

• Tetracycline
• oxytetracycline
• chlortetracycline
• mass spectrometry