LC-MS/MS Analysis of
Antibiotics and Pesticide
Residues
The Korea Beekeeping Association (KBA) was founded in 1967 to promote apiculture development in Korea; to protect consumers through high-quality testing for honey; and to conduct research, advertising and promotion programs to help maintain and expand domestic
and foreign markets for honey. Located in Seoul, the KBA today employs
21 people to fulfill these goals.
Increasing concern over the presence of antibiotics and
pesticide residues in foodstuffs and the related potential
health threats to humans have required food quality-control
laboratories to develop fast and efficient methods of detecting
these contaminants. Some of the challenges facing these organizations include their need for multi-component quantitation, desire for limited or no sample preparation and
requirement of an automated, online method to make quality
control screening cost-effective.
Because KBA is responsible for testing products that are
exported worldwide, the organization has the added pressure
of following regulations from countries around the world in ad-
dition to the Korean Food and Drug Administration, which sets
the standards for pesticide residues and conducts toxicology
research in that country.
both the consumer and the global marketplace about the safety of our products.”
When used with the company’s TSQ
Quantum Ultra triple quadrupole mass
spectrometer, the Transcend system delivers fast, efficient quantitative results with
the lowest ion suppression and chemical
noise. This results in highly sensitive bio-analytical methods, development of more
robust methods and a reduction in analysis failures. This is the only instrument that
enables highly selective reaction monitoring (H-SRM) performance, allowing scientists to analyze complex samples quickly
and efficiently. H-SRM can eliminate
chemical noise, lower detection limits and
reduce the likelihood of generating false
positives.
www.thermo.com/transcend
The Challenge
The large number and variety of potential contaminants in honey presented a challenge to the KBA. Current screening techniques for the incidence of antibacterial agent residues in food matrices typically require
solvent extraction followed by an analyte-specific cleanup process. In addition, chromatographic techniques are technically complicated, time consuming and expensive to run as preliminary sample screening tools.
The organization needed to find an analytical solution that could detect
multi-component antibiotics simultaneously and at low levels. The KBA decided that a simultaneous screening method for the multiple classes of antibiotics and acaricides at trace levels in honey was best served by a
LC-MS/MS technique.
“Other techniques like HPLC, LC/MS, and GC/MS could only detect a
small number of analytes at one time,” says Hye-Sook Oh, Laboratory
Manager, Korea Beekeeping Association. “We needed to identify multiple
contaminants as well as process a fairly large number of samples, approximately 50 at one time. Plus, we preferred the advantages of limited or no
sample preparation and an online analysis technique to make the screening
cost-effective.”
Business Benefit
“We found that using the Transcend
system with TurboFlow technology was a
powerful analytical method for the testing
of antibiotics and pesticides in honey,” Oh
says. “Our pre-injection sample preparation was virtually eliminated. This advantage alone enables us to carry out the
analysis in only 17 minutes, compared to
between five and 10 hours using our traditional offline method. In addition, eliminating the consumption of cartridges and
solvent has significantly reduced analytical
costs.”
The system also assisted KBA researchers in reducing matrix effects—a
typical challenge in LC-MS/MS analysis.
This enables KBA scientists to directly inject samples into the LC-MS/MS system
prior to analysis, a significant advantage in
analyses where extensive sample preparation is time-consuming and costly. The
system and mass spectrometer together
deliver fast and efficient quantitative results with the lowest ion suppression and
chemical noise.
The Solution
The KBA discovered that LC-MS/MS using the Thermo Scientific Transcend system powered by TurboFlow™ technology presented the best potential as a technique for antibiotic residue analysis in honey, in contrast to
utilizing offline sample preparation.
“The Transcend™ coupled with MS/MS met our organization’s goals of
both increasing the analysis throughput and acquiring higher reproducibility
because of its capability for automation,” Oh says. “We were pleased with
the system’s ability to provide a sensitive and reliable analytical method in
order to detect a full range of antibiotics. Now we can ensure Korean
honey samples are free of contaminants, which in turn helps us assure
Conclusion
The KBA found that this system coupled with MS/MS is a powerful analytical
method to test for antibiotics and pesticides in honey. Pre-injection sample
preparation is virtually eliminated, saving
labor costs as well as increasing productivity. A detection limit of 1 ng/ml is well
below the maximum residue limit of the
antibiotics tested. The KBA method
proved to be a valuable tool for the determination of antibiotics and pesticides in
honey samples and presents future applications for a larger range of antibiotic contaminants and possibilities for the
screening of other veterinary drugs in agricultural food product matrices.
