Determination of a Large Set of β-Adrenergic Agonists in Animal Matrices Based on Ion Mobility and Mass Separations

Ultrasound probe enhanced enzymatic hydrolysis for rapid separation of β2-adrenergic agonists from animal urine and livestock wastewater: Applicability to biomonitoring investigation

BACKGROUND

An increasing number of β2-adrenergic agonists are illicitly used for growth promoting and lean meat increasing in animal husbandry in recent years, but the development of analytical methods has lagged behind these emerging drugs.

RESULTS

Here, we designed and developed an ultrasound probe enhanced enzymatic hydrolysis reactor for quick separation and simultaneously quantification of 22 β2-adrenergic agonists in animal urine and livestock wastewater. Owing to the enhancement of the conventional enzymatic digestion through the ultrasound acoustic probe power, only 2 min was required for the comprehensively separation of β2-adrenergic agonists from the sample matrices, making it a much more desirable alternative tool for high-throughput investigation. The swine, bovine and sheep urines (n = 287), and livestock wastewater (n = 15) samples, collected from both the north and south China, were examined to demonstrate the feasibility and capability of the proposed approach. Six kinds of β2-adrenergic agonists (clenbuterol, salbutamol, ractopamine, terbutaline, clorprenaline and cimaterol) were found in animal urines, with concentrations ranged between 0.056 μg/L (terbutaline) and 5.79 μg/L (clenbuterol). Up to nine β2-adrenergic agonists were detected in wastewater samples, of which four were found in swine farms and nine in cattle/sheep farms, with concentration levels from 0.069 μg/L (tulobuterol) to 2470 μg/L (clenbuterol).

SIGNIFICANCE

Interestingly, since β2-adrenergic agonists are usually considered to be abused mainly in the pig farms, our data indicate that both the detection frequencies and concentrations of these agonists in the ruminant farms were higher than the pig farms. Furthermore, the findings of this work indicated that there is a widespread occurrence of β2-adrenergic agonists in livestock farms, especially for clenbuterol and salbutamol, which may pose both food safety and potential ecological risks. We recommend that stricter controls should be adopted to prevent the illegally usage of these β2-adrenergic agonists in agricultural animals, especially ruminants, and they should also be removed before discharging to the environment.

Application of Ion Mobility Spectrometry and the Derived Collision Cross Section in the Analysis of Environmental Organic Micropollutants

Ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) is a rapid gas-phase separation technique, which can distinguish ions on the basis of their size, shape, and charge. The IMS-derived collision cross section (CCS) can serve as additional identification evidence for the screening of environmental organic micropollutants (OMPs). In this work, we summarize the published experimental CCS values of environmental OMPs, introduce the current CCS prediction tools, summarize the use of IMS and CCS in the analysis of environmental OMPs, and finally discussed the benefits of IMS and CCS in environmental analysis. An up-to-date CCS compendium for environmental contaminants was produced by combining CCS databases and data sets of particular types of environmental OMPs, including pesticides, drugs, mycotoxins, steroids, plastic additives, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), as well as their well-known transformation products. A total of 9407 experimental CCS values from 4170 OMPs were retrieved from 23 publications, which contain both drift tube CCS in nitrogen (DTCCSN2) and traveling wave CCS in nitrogen (TWCCSN2). A selection of publicly accessible and in-house CCS prediction tools were also investigated; the chemical space covered by the training set and the quality of CCS measurements seem to be vital factors affecting the CCS prediction accuracy. Then, the applications of IMS and the derived CCS in the screening of various OMPs were summarized, and the benefits of IMS and CCS, including increased peak capacity, the elimination of interfering ions, the separation of isomers, and the reduction of false positives and false negatives, were discussed in detail. With the improvement of the resolving power of IMS and enhancements of experimental CCS databases, the practicability of IMS in the analysis of environmental OMPs will continue to improve.

Quick and high-throughput quantification of 22 β-agonists residues in animal-derived foods using enzymatic probe sonication

A high demand exists in veterinary drug residual analysis for rapid, automatic and high-throughput analytical techniques that produce data simultaneous and faster. Here, we describe a combined automated solid-phase extraction (SPE) and enzymatic probe sonication (EPS), subsequently ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) for the quick extraction, automated clean-up as well as simultaneous quantification of 22 β-agonists residues in animal-derived foods. Enhanced by the ultrasonic probe, only 2 min was needed for exhaustively extraction of β-agonists from foods of animal-origin; whereas traditional enzymatic digestion methods require hours or even days, which making it more appropriate for high-throughput biomonitoring. Moreover, the clean-up and pre-concentration procedures were conducted on the automatic SPE, which allowed 36 samples being performed simultaneously within 30 min. The method was successfully applied for analyzing 56 animal-derived food samples, 53.6 % of which contained detectable levels of at least one kind of β-agonists. Interestingly, both the detection rate and residual level of β-agonists in the ruminants (bovine and sheep) were higher as compared with the swine. Concerning the real food samples analyzed, the findings of this study suggest that stricter measures should be adopted to control the illegal usage of β-agonists on the farm animals, particularly for the ruminants.

Ion mobility-mass spectrometry to extend analytical performance in the determination of ergot alkaloids in cereal samples

This work evaluates the potential of ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) to improve the analytical performance of current liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) workflows applied to the determination of ergot alkaloids (EAs) in cereal samples. Collision cross section (CCS) values for EA epimers are reported for the first time to contribute to their unambiguous identification. Additionally, CCS values have been inter-laboratory cross-validated and compared with CCS values predicted by machine-learning models. Slight differences were observed in terms of CCS values for ergotamine, ergosine and ergocristine and their corresponding epimers (from 3.3 to 4%), being sufficient to achieve a satisfactory peak-to-peak resolution for their unequivocal identification. A LC-travelling wave ion mobility (TWIM)-MS method has been developed for the analysis of EAs in barley and wheat samples. Signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) was improved between 2.5 and 4-fold compared to the analog LC-TOF-MS method. The quality of the extracted ion chromatograms was also improved by using IMS.

Simultaneous Determination of Nine Quinolones in Pure Milk Using PFSPE-HPLC-MS/MS with PS-PAN Nanofibers as a Sorbent

In this study, a packed-fiber solid-phase extraction (PFSPE)-based method was developed to simultaneously detect nine quinolones, including enrofloxacin (ENR), ciprofloxacin (CIP), ofloxacin (OFL), pefloxacin (PEF), lomefloxacin (LOM), norfloxacin (NOR), sarafloxacin (SAR), danofloxacin (DAN), and difloxacin (DIF), in pure milk, using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS). Polystyrene (PS) and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) were combined to form PS-PAN composite nanofibers through electrospinning. The nanofibers were used to prepare the home-made extraction columns, and the process was optimized and validated using blank pure milk. The analytical method showed high accuracy, and the recoveries were 88.68–97.63%. Intra-day and inter-day relative standard deviations were in the ranges of 1.11–6.77% and 2.26–7.17%, respectively. In addition, the developed method showed good linearity (R² ≥ 0.995) and low method quantification limits for the nine quinolones (between 1.0–100 ng/mL) for all samples studied. The nine quinolones in the complex matrix were directly extracted using 4.0 mg of PS-PAN composite nanofibers as a sorbent and completely eluted in 100 μL elution solvent. Therefore, the developed PFSPE-HPLC-MS/MS is a sensitive and cost-effective technique that can effectively detect and control nine quinolones in dairy products.

Analysis of β-agonists in different biological matrices by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry

Introduction

Wide use is made of β-agonists in therapy due to their smooth muscle–relaxant properties. They also have a side effect of increasing muscle mass. Besides improving oxygen utilisation as bronchodilators, β-agonists increase protein synthesis and promote fat burning. The growth- and performance-enhancing effects are often exploited in illegal use. The guiding objective of this study was to develop a procedure for the determination of β-agonists by a single method in different types of matrices.

Material and Methods

Five grams of homogenised samples were subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis with β-glucuronidase in ammonium acetate, pH 5.2. Purification was performed by solid phase extraction. Analytes were eluted with 10% acetic acid in methanol. The eluted β-agonists were analysed by high-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry.

Results

Validation results met the requirement of the confirmation criteria according to European Commission Decision 2002/657/EC in terms of apparent recoveries (93.2–112.0%), repeatability (3.1–7.1%) and intra-laboratory reproducibility (4.1–8.2%).

Conclusion

The method can be successfully applied in the detection and determination of clenbuterol, salbutamol, mabuterol, mapenterol, terbutaline, brombuterol, zilpaterol, isoxsuprine and ractopamine in feed, drinking water, urine, muscle, lung and liver matrices.

Food safety and quality assessment: comprehensive review and recent trends in the applications of ion mobility spectrometry (IMS)

Ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) is an analytical separation and diagnostic technique that is simple and sensitive and a rapid response and low-priced technique for detecting trace levels of chemical compounds in different matrices. Chemical agents and environmental contaminants are successfully detected by IMS and have been recently considered to employ in food safety. In addition, IMS uses stand-alone or coupled analytical diagnostic tools with chromatographic and spectroscopic methods. Scientific publications show that IMS has been applied 21% in the pharmaceutical industry, 9% in environmental studies and 13% in quality control and food safety. Nevertheless, applications of IMS in food safety and quality analysis have not been adequately explored. This review presents the IMS-related analysis and focuses on the application of IMS in food safety and quality. This review presents the important topics including detection of traces of chemicals, rate of food spoilage and freshness, food adulteration and authenticity as well as natural toxins, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, veterinary, and growth promoter drug residues. Further, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), acrylamide, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), biogenic amines, nitrosamine, furfural, phenolic compounds, heavy metals, food packaging materials, melamine, and food additives were also examined for the first time. Therefore, it is logical to predict that the application of the IMS technique in food safety, food quality, and contaminant analysis will be impressively increased in the future. HighlightsCurrent status of IMS for residues and contaminant detection in food safety.To assess all the detected contaminants in food safety, for the first time.Identified IMS-related parameters and chemical compounds in food safety control.

Sensitive detection of clenbuterol by hybrid iridium/silicon nanowire-enhanced laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry

There is increasing demand for anti-doping drug monitoring in sports and food safety checks by developing sensitive and fast analytical methods. Here we report the development of hybrid Ir/SiNW as a new MALDI matrix for the detection of small molecules. This matrix is characterized by sufficient UV absorption, low-noise background, and high efficiency in ionization of small molecules. Sensitive detection of clenbuterol (LOD: 0.18 pmol) and a variety of other small molecules has been achieved using the Ir/SiNW matrix with a reproducible performance. Compared to the individual components separately, the matrix of hybrid Ir/SiNW synthesized via in situ growth can promote the MS signal intensity by up to 10 fold under identical experimental conditions. We provide a unique mechanism for the high performance of the hybrid Ir/SiNW matrix with the characteristic properties of hydrogen atom transfer and enhanced protonation at the interface of the hybrid nanostructures. Our approach of using a hybrid Ir/SiNW matrix enables detection of clenbuterol quantitatively in complicated biological samples and in vivo experiments, promising a useful tool for food security and anti-doping drug monitoring in sports.

Effects of Terbutaline on Growth Performance, Carcass Quality, Some Biochemical Parameters and its Residues in Broiler Chicken

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

Terbutaline is a β-agonist that used as growth promoters to improved carcass chemical composition of chicks without residues. The purpose of the present investigation is exploring the effect of different dietary levels and duration of terbutaline on the productive performance, biochemical and carcass quality traits including residue of acres broiler.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A total of 150 one-day-old arbor acres broiler chicks were allotted into 5 groups (3 replicates per each). Group 1 was fed on the basal diet without supplement, while groups 2-5 fed on the basal diet supplemented by 5 or 10 mg terbutaline kg-1 diet during 1-42 or 21-42 days, respectively.

RESULTS

When handling the dietary levels and duration of terbutaline, results of the present study showed that10 mg terbutaline kg-1 diet during the whole experimental period is a more effective dose for improvement of growth performance with significant (p<0.05) increased serum protein and breast muscles relative weight compared with control. Also, 10 mg terbutaline kg-1 diet during the whole experimental period significantly (p<0.05) increase d CP% (crude protein%) and CHO% (carbohydrate%) of breast muscle and significantly (p<0.05) decreased fat% (ether extract%) of breast muscle and abdominal fat relative weight compared with control. Meanwhile, 5 mg terbutaline kg-1 diet during 1-42 or 21-42 days has no significant effect on the above-mentioned parameters. Regarding residue, the terbutaline residue wasn't detected in broiler meat.

CONCLUSION

It can conclude that 10 mg terbutaline kg-1 diet during the whole experimental period is a better dose and duration for improving growth performance, the chemical composition of breast muscle and carcass traits of broiler chickens with no terbutaline residue in breast muscle.

Ion Mobility Spectrometry in Food Analysis: Principles, Current Applications and Future Trends

In the last decade, ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) has reemerged as an analytical separation technique, especially due to the commercialization of ion mobility mass spectrometers. Its applicability has been extended beyond classical applications such as the determination of chemical warfare agents and nowadays it is widely used for the characterization of biomolecules (e.g., proteins, glycans, lipids, etc.) and, more recently, of small molecules (e.g., metabolites, xenobiotics, etc.). Following this trend, the interest in this technique is growing among researchers from different fields including food science. Several advantages are attributed to IMS when integrated in traditional liquid chromatography (LC) and gas chromatography (GC) mass spectrometry (MS) workflows: (1) it improves method selectivity by providing an additional separation dimension that allows the separation of isobaric and isomeric compounds; (2) it increases method sensitivity by isolating the compounds of interest from background noise; (3) and it provides complementary information to mass spectra and retention time, the so-called collision cross section (CCS), so compounds can be identified with more confidence, either in targeted or non-targeted approaches. In this context, the number of applications focused on food analysis has increased exponentially in the last few years. This review provides an overview of the current status of IMS technology and its applicability in different areas of food analysis (i.e., food composition, process control, authentication, adulteration and safety).

Potential of ion mobility-mass spectrometry for both targeted and non-targeted analysis of phase II steroid metabolites in urine

In recent years, the commercialization of hybrid ion mobility-mass spectrometers and their integration in traditional LC-MS workflows provide new opportunities to extend the current boundaries of targeted and non-targeted analyses. When coupled to LC-MS, ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) provides a novel characterization parameter, the so-called averaged collision cross section (CCS, Ω), as well as improves method selectivity and sensitivity by the separation of isobaric and isomeric molecules and the isolation of the analytes of interest from background noise. In this work, we have explored the potential and advantages of this technology for carrying out the determination of phase II steroid metabolites (i.e. androgen and estrogen conjugates, including glucuronide and sulfate compounds; n = 25) in urine samples. These molecules have been selected based on their relevance in the fields of chemical food safety and doping control, as well as in metabolomics studies. The influence of urine matrix on the CCS of steroid metabolites was evaluated in order to give more confidence to current CCS databases and support its use as complementary information to retention time (Rt) and mass spectra for compound identification. Samples were only diluted 10-fold with aqueous formic acid (0.1%, v/v) prior analysis. Only an almost insignificant effect of adult bovine urine matrix on the CCS of certain steroid metabolites was observed in comparison with calve urine matrix, which is a less complex sample. In addition, high accuracy was achieved for CCS measurements carried out over four months (ΔCCS < 1.3% for 99.8% of CCS measurements; n = 1806). Interestingly, it has been observed that signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio could be improved at least 2 or 7-fold when IMS is combined with LC-MS. In addition to the separation of isomeric steroid pairs (i.e. etiocholanolone glucuronide and epiandrosterone glucuronide, as well as 19-noretiocholanolone glucuronide and 19-norandrosterone glucuronide), steroid-based ions were also separated in the IMS dimension from co-eluting matrix compounds that presented similar mass-to-charge ratio (m/z). Finally, based on CCS measurements and as a proof of concept, 17α-boldenone glucuronide has been identified as one of the main metabolites resulted from boldione administration to calves.

Determination of β-Agonist Residues in Animal-Derived Food by a Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometric Method Combined with Molecularly Imprinted Stir Bar Sorptive Extraction

A novel clenbuterol molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP)-coated stir bar was prepared and applied to the determination of six β-agonists in animal-derived food. Characterization and various parameters affecting adsorption and desorption behaviours were investigated. The extraction capacities of clenbuterol, salbutamol, ractopamine, mabuterol, brombuterol, and terbutaline for MIP coating were 3.8, 2.9, 3.1, 3.5, 3.2, and 3.3 times higher, respectively, than those of the NIP coating, respectively. The method of MIP-coated SBSE coupled with HPLC-MS/MS was developed. The recoveries in pork and liver samples were 75.8-97.9% with RSD from 2.6 to 5.3%. Limits of detection (LODs) and limits of quantification (LOQs) were 0.05-0.15 μg/kg and 0.10-0.30 μg/kg, respectively. Good linearities were obtained for six β-agonists with correlation coefficients (R²) higher than 0.994. These results indicated the superiority of the proposed method in the analysis of β-agonists in a complex matrix.

Adding a new separation dimension to MS and LC-MS: What is the utility of ion mobility spectrometry?

Ion mobility spectrometry is an analytical technique known for more than 100 years, which entails separating ions in the gas phase based on their size, shape, and charge. While ion mobility spectrometry alone can be useful for some applications (mostly security analysis for detecting certain classes of narcotics and explosives), it becomes even more powerful in combination with mass spectrometry and high-performance liquid chromatography. Indeed, the limited resolving power of ion mobility spectrometry alone can be tackled when combining this analytical strategy with mass spectrometry or liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry. Over the last few years, the hyphenation of ion mobility spectrometry to mass spectrometry or liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry has attracted more and more interest, with significant progresses in both technical advances and pioneering applications. This review describes the theoretical background, available technologies, and future capabilities of these techniques. It also highlights a wide range of applications, from small molecules (natural products, metabolites, glycans, lipids) to large biomolecules (proteins, protein complexes, biopharmaceuticals, oligonucleotides).

Metabolic Effects of Clenbuterol and Salbutamol on Pork Meat Studied Using Internal Extractive Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry

Direct mass spectrometry analysis of metabolic effects of clenbuterol and salbutamol on pork quality at the molecular level is incredibly beneficial for food regulations, public health and the development of new anti-obesity drugs. With internal extractive electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (iEESI-MS), nutrients including creatine, amino acids, L-carnitine, vitamin B₆, carnosine and phosphatidylcholines in pork tissue were identified, without sample pretreatment, using collision-induced dissociation (CID) experiments and by comparison with authentic compounds. Furthermore, normal pork samples were clearly differentiated from pork samples with clenbuterol and salbutamol via principal component analysis (PCA). Correlation analysis performed on the spectral data revealed that the above-mentioned nutrients strongly correlated with pork quality, and the absolute intensity of phosphatidylcholines in normal pork was much higher than pork contaminated by clenbuterol and salbutamol. Our findings suggested that clenbuterol and salbutamol may render effects on the activity of carnitine acyltransferase I, hence the process that L-carnitine transports long-chain fatty acids into mitochondria and the formation of phosphatidylcholines might be affected. However, the underlying metabolic mechanisms of clenbuterol and salbutamol on carnitine acyltransferase I requires more comprehensive studies in future work.

Ion-Mobility-Derived Collision Cross Section as an Additional Identification Point for Multiresidue Screening of Pesticides in Fish Feed

Ion mobility spectrometry allows for the measurement of the collision cross section (CCS), which provides information about the shape of an ionic molecule in the gas phase. Although the hyphenation of traveling-wave ion mobility spectrometry (TWIMS) with high-resolution quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (QTOFMS) has been mainly used for structural elucidation purposes, its potential for fast screening of small molecules in complex samples has not yet been thoroughly evaluated. The current work explores the capabilities of ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) coupled to a new design TWIMS-QTOFMS for the screening and identification of a large set of pesticides in complex salmon feed matrices. A database containing TWIMS-derived CCS values for more than 200 pesticides is hereby presented. CCS measurements showed high intra- and interday repeatability (RSD < 1%), and they were not affected by the complexity of the investigated matrices (ΔCCS ≤ 1.8%). The use of TWIMS in combination with QTOFMS was demonstrated to provide an extra-dimension, which resulted in increased peak capacity and selectivity in real samples. Thus, many false-positive detections could be straightforwardly discarded just by applying a maximum ΔCCS tolerance of ±2%. CCS was proposed as a valuable additional identification point in the pesticides screening workflow. Several commercial fish feed samples were finally analyzed to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach. Ethoxyquin and pirimiphos-methyl were identified in most of the analyzed samples, whereas tebuconazole and piperonil butoxide were identified for the first time in fish feed samples.