Determination of eight sulfonamides in bovine kidney by liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry with on-line extraction and sample clean-up

A sensitive, high performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometric (i.e. mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry; LC/MS/MS) method with on-line extraction and sample clean-up for the screening and confirmation of residues of sulfonamides in kidney is described. The sulfonamides are extracted from homogenized kidney with methanol. After centrifugation of the extract, an aliquot of the extract is directly injected on the LC/MS/MS system with further extraction and clean-up of the sample on-line. Detection of the analytes was achieved by positive electrospray ionization (ESI) followed by multiple reaction monitoring. For each sulfonamide the collisional decomposition of the protonated molecule to a common, abundant fragment ion was monitored. The method has been validated for sulfadimethoxine, sulfaquinoxaline, sulfamethazine, sulfamerazine, sulfathiazole, sulfamethoxazole, sulfadiazine and sulfapyridine. Calibration curves resulting from spiked blank kidney samples at the 10-200 microg/kg level showed good linear correlation. At the level of 50, 100 and 200 microg/kg both within- and between-day precision, as measured by relative standard deviation (RSD), were less than 16%. The limits of detection (LODs) ranged from 5 to 13.5 microg/kg. The recoveries ranged from 78 to 82%. The procedure provides a rapid, reliable and sensitive method for the determination of residues of sulfonamides in bovine kidney. The advantage of this method over existing methods is its decreased sample preparation and analysis time, which makes the method more suitable for routine analysis.