Development of a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for the quantification of glucocorticoid residues in edible tissues of swine, cattle, sheep, and chicken

Abstract

A confirmatory and quantitative method using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) to determine the presence of eight glucocorticoids (prednisone, prednisolone, hydrocortisone, methylprednisolone, dexamethasone, betamethasone, beclomethasone, and fludrocortisone) in the muscles and livers of swine, cattle, and sheep and the muscle of chicken is described. After deconjugation in alkali media, samples were extracted with ethyl acetate for glucocorticoids followed by solid-phase extraction clean-up and reconstitution in the LC mobile phase. The hydrolysis procedure with sodium hydroxide was used to reduce handling time. A single-step solid-phase extraction method was optimized which is suitable for the clean-up of the compounds of interest in many diverse tissue matrices. LC separations were performed on a C₁₈ column with gradient elution using acetonitrile and water (containing 0.2% formic acid) and the two epimers betamethasone and dexamethasone were successfully separated. LC-electrospray ionization (ESI)-MS/MS in negative mode with selected reaction monitoring (SRM) mode was performed to improve method sensitivity and reduce matrix interference. Two SRM transitions were used for each compound. The recovery of glucocorticoids spiked at levels of 0.5–16 µg kg⁻¹ ranged from 55% to 107%; the between-day relative standard deviations were no more than 15%. The limits of quantification were 0.5–2.0 µg kg⁻¹ in muscle and 1–4 µg kg⁻¹ in liver. The optimized procedure was successfully applied to monitor the food at the 2008 Summer Olympics Games in Beijing, China, demonstrating the method to be simple, fast, robust, and suitable for identification and quantification of glucocorticoids residues in foods of animal origin.

Keywords:

• liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS)
• veterinary drug residues
• anabolic steroids
• animal products
• meat

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Ministry of Agriculture of the People's Republic of China for the financial support that enabled this work to be carried out.