A simple and sensitive liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method for quantification of multi-residual pesticides in blood

Pesticides are synthetic chemical compounds that are toxic and may cause toxicity when exposed in large quantities. The leading site of action of these compounds is the inhibition of acetylcholinesterase. Quantifying the pesticide levels in the human body can help understand and study pesticide exposure in humans. The study aimed to develop and validate a rapid and accurate liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method for the quantitative determination of pesticide concentration in human blood samples. The analytes were separated using an Agilent Stable Bond C18 column and a mobile phase containing 10 mM ammonium formate in water and acetonitrile. The limits of detection and quantitation from the developed method were 0.023-0.161 and 0.072-0.487 ng/mL, respectively, while the recoveries from the spiked blood samples were 78.01-104.36%. The intraday and interday accuracies and precision were 40-105% and 0.5-13 RSD% and 40-113% and 3-14 RSD%, respectively. Linear regression was obtained at a value of > 0.9921, indicating the method to be accurate and precise. Validation was further performed on pesticide exposure and control blood samples effectively. The developed method can be employed to estimate the levels of exposure in blood samples since the method has been found to be accurate and reliable under the European standard guidelines.