Simple and rapid liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry confirmatory assay for determining amoxicillin and ampicillin in bovine tissues and milk

A simple specific and rapid confirmatory method for determining the two amphoteric penicillins, that is, amoxicillin and ampicillin, in bovine muscle, liver, kidney, and milk is presented. This method is based on the matrix solid-phase dispersion technique with hot water as extractant followed by liquid chromatography (LC)-tandem mass spectrometry. With this instrumentation, the selected reaction monitoring acquisition mode with two fragmentation reactions for each analyte was adopted. After acidification and filtration of the aqueous extracts, 25 muL of the tissue final extracts and 50 muL of the milk final extract were injected into the LC apparatus. Absolute recovery of the two analytes in any biological matrix at the 50 ppb level in tissues and the 4 ppb level in milk was 74-95% with relative standard deviations (RSDs) of no larger than 9%. When penicillin V was used as surrogate internal standard, relative recovery of the targeted compounds present in bovine tissues and milk at, respectively, 25 and 2 ppb levels ranged between 100 and 106% with RSDs of no larger than 11%. When fractionation of analytes by using a short chromatographic run was attempted, remarkable signal weakening for the two analytes was experienced. This effect was traced to polar endogenous coextractives eluted in the first part of the chromatographic run that interfered with the gas-phase ion formation of the two penicillins. Slowing the chromatographic run eliminated this unwelcome effect. Limits of quantification of the two analytes in bovine milk were estimated to be <1 ppb, whereas amoxicillin and ampicillin could be quantified in bovine tissues down to 3.1 and 0.8 ppb levels, respectively.