Simultaneous determination of tetracylines and quinolones antibiotics in egg by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry

We report here an ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometric (MS/MS) method for the simultaneous quantitation of multiclass veterinary drugs in egg. The analysis of the target compounds, including 7 tetracyclines and 4 types of quinolones, may be accomplished in 15 min of total run time. The egg was extracted with ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid-Mclivaine buffer solution and further purified using a polymer-based Oasis HLB solid-phase extraction cartridge. A C18 column was used to separate the analytes followed by MS/MS using an electrospray ion source. The overall average recoveries of the analytes based on matrix-fortified calibration ranged from 71 to 112% with acceptable relative standard deviations of <20% for 6 trials. For all of the target compounds, the limits of quantitation ranged between 0.02 and 4.29 mu g/kg. The proposed method is sufficiently sensitive and highly selective.