Simultaneous Analysis of Avermectins in Bovine Tissues by LC-MS-MS with Immunoaffinity Chromatography Cleanup

A rapid, simple and sensitive LC-MS-MS method was developed to simultaneously measure residues of avermectin, ivermectin, doramectin, and eprinomectin in bovine liver and muscle. The extracted samples were cleaned by an immunoaffinity column which was prepared by coupling anti-avermectin polyclonal antibodies with CNBr-activated Sepharose 4B. The residues eluted from the column were analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry. Recoveries fortified at levels 5−50 ng g−1 ranged from 62.93 to 84.03%, with relative standard deviations from 6.02 to 17.39% for all four compounds in liver tissue. The limits of quantification were 5 ng g−1, and limits of detection were 2.5 ng g−1 in liver for the four drugs. The procedure was also applied to bovine muscle, giving similar results.