LC-HRMS analysis of 13 classes of pharmaceutical substances in food supplements

Food supplements should not contain substances considered unsafe or pose a health risk to consumers. In recent years illegal adulterants have been found in various functional foods without notification of their presence or amount in the labelling. In this study, a validated method was developed and applied as a screening method to detect 124 forbidden substances belonging to 13 classes of compounds in food supplements. Liquid chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) and a simple and rapid extraction protocol was applied to 110 food supplements collected from the internet market or during official controls in Italy. The percentage of non-compliant samples was 4.5%, relatively high compared with the official control results for these substances usually obtained on other food matrices. The results suggested the need to strengthen controls in this field to detect food supplement adulteration, which represents a potential health risk for the consumer.

[Single-laboratory Validation Study and Surveillance Using an Improved Multiresidue Analytical Method for Veterinary Drugs in Livestock Products by LC-MS/MS]

A method for the rapid analysis of multiclass residual veterinary drugs in poultry muscle, egg, and raw milk was validated in accordance with Japanese guidelines. Using LC-MS/MS, 20 veterinary drugs, including sulfonamides, coccidiostats, and macrolides were analyzed in one injection. Analytes were extracted from the samples with acetonitrile and then dehydrated and salted out using magnesium sulfate, trisodium citrate, and sodium chloride. This method was assessed by performing recovery tests of chicken muscle, duck muscle, egg, and raw milk spiked with 20 new target analytes at concentrations of 10 and 100 µg/kg. According to this method, 17 out of 20 target analytes satisfied the guideline criteria in chicken muscle and duck muscle, and all 20 target analytes met the criteria in egg and raw milk. The limit of quantification was less than MRLs for all analytes. Residues were detected in 4 out of 99 samples and analyzed using the validated method, finding that the levels of all residues were lower than the limits of quantification. These results suggest that continuous monitoring for a new trend of veterinary drugs is necessary.

Occurrence of Halogenated Pollutants in Domestic and Occupational Indoor Dust

The occurrence of halogenated organic pollutants in indoor dust can be high due to the presence of textile, electronic devices, furniture, and building materials treated with these chemicals. In this explorative study, we focused on emerging organic pollutants, such as novel brominated flame retardants (nBFRs) and some perfluoroalkyl substances, together with legacy polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (BDEs) in settled dust collected in houses and workplaces such as one office and two electrotechnical and mechanical workshops. The total contribution of the investigated pollutants was lower in house and in office dusts except for few nBFRs (such as bis (2-ethylhexyl)-3,4,5,6-tetrabromo-phthalate at a concentration of 464.5 ng/g in a house and hexachlorocyclopentadienyldibromocyclooctane at 40.4 ng/g in the office), whereas in electrotechnical and mechanical workshops a high incidence of PCBs, BDEs, and nBFRs occurred (for example, BDE 209 at a concentration of 2368.0 ng/g and tetrabromobisphenol A at 32,320.1 ng/g in electrotechnical and mechanical workshops). Estimated daily intakes were also calculated, showing that domestic and occupational environments can lead to a similar contribution in terms of human exposure. The higher exposure contribution was associated to nBFRs, whose EDIs were in the range of 3968.2–555,694.2 pg/kg bw/day. To provide a complete view about the indoor contamination, in this investigation, we also included polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their oxygenated and nitrated derivatives. Definitely, dust collection represents a simple, fast, and cost-effective sampling and dust contamination level can be a useful indicator of environment healthiness. Besides, the presented method can be a smart tool to provide a time and money saving technique to characterize 99 pollutants thanks to a single sample treatment.

A Simple and Fast Extraction Method for the Determination of Multiclass Antibiotics in Eggs Using LC-MS/MS

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a simple, fast, and specific extraction method for the analysis of 64 antibiotics from nine classes (including sulfonamides, quinolones, tetracyclines, macrolides, lincosamide, nitrofurans, β-lactams, nitromidazoles, and cloramphenicols) in chicken eggs. Briefly, egg samples were simply extracted with a mixture of acetonitrile-water (90:10, v/v) and 0.1 mol·L^-1 Na₂EDTA solution assisted with ultrasonic. The extract was centrifuged, condensed, and directly analyzed on a liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry. Compared with conventional cleanup methods (passing through solid phase extract cartridges), the established method demonstrated comparable efficiencies in eliminating matrix effects and higher or equivalent recoveries for most of the target compounds. Typical validation parameters including specificity, linearity, matrix effect, limits of detection (LODs) and quantification (LOQs), the decision limit, detection capability, trueness, and precision were evaluated. The recoveries of target compounds ranged from 70.8% to 116.1% at three spiking levels (5, 20, and 50 μg·kg^-1), with relative standard deviations less than 14%. LODs and LOQs were in the ranges of 0.005-2.00 μg·kg^-1 and 0.015-6.00 μg·kg^-1 for all of the antibiotics, respectively. A total of five antibiotics were successfully detected in 22 commercial eggs from local markets. This work suggests that the method is suitable for the analysis of multiclass antibiotics in eggs.