Veterinary drugs are used in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, and prevention of diseases in animals as well as in the promotion of growth. However, there is increasing concern about these drugs entering the food chain and their effects on the human body. These drugs are categorized in many classes, such as anabolic hormones, anthelmintics, antibiotics, beta-agonists, coccidiostats, corticosteroids, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), and sedatives. Below are a few examples of veterinary drugs analyses.
Veterinary drugs are often used to promote the growth of farm animals, but many of these compounds are subject to residue standards. From this background, there is a need for a highly sensitive and rapid analytical technique to analyze as many of these compounds as possible in a single run. LC-MS/MS enables simultaneous analysis of multiple veterinary drugs with high sensitivity.
Triple Quadrupole LC-MS/MS
LCMS-8060NX
MRM chromatograms of 89 veterinary drugs in pork
MRM Spectrum Mode was developed to reduce false positives and false negatives in analysis of veterinary drugs. MRM Spectrum Mode acquires a high number of fragment ion transitions for each target compound and generates fragmentation spectra. In examination of quantifying and identifying 212 veterinary drugs, the level of confidence in compound identification and verification increased in MRM Spectrum Mode, and limits of detection, linearity or repeatability were not compromised compared to a conventional method (2 MRM / compound).
Analysis of 212 veterinary drugs using MRM Spectrum Mode
Aminoglycosides are very polar compounds poorly retained by reversed-phase liquid chromatography and ion-pairing reagents are not desirable when users share several methods on a single system. Here we present a method using hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILiC) with high sensitivity mass spectrometer to reach limits of quantifcation at femtogram level on column, combined with MRM Spectrum Mode for formal identification.
MRM chromatograms of aminoglycoside antibiotics in chicken liver
Analysis of aminoglycoside antibiotics using MRM Spectrum Mode
HPLC and LC-MS are widely used for analysis of veterinary drugs. Here is an example of screening analysis of multiple quinolone agents using HPLC (Antimicrobial Screening System).
Chromatograms of 12 quinolone agents in meat