Determination of quinolones in aquatic products by HPLC and HPLC-MS/MS: a comparison of the two methods

Quinolones which have demonstrated broad-spectrum activity against many pathogenic Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria are effective antibacterial drugs widely used against various important diseases of livestock and farmed fish.The European Union has established maximum residue limits(MRL) for quinolone residues in animal tissues because of growing problem of microbial resistance.Thus,the establishment of effective detection methods is required in order to control these drugs.Many papers have been published about the analysis of quinolone residues in animal products.High performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry method(HPLC-MS/MS) and high performance liquid chromatography(HPLC) method which are generally used were applied respectively to detect norfloxacin,ciprofloxacin and enrofloxacin in aquatic products because of their specificity,sensitivity,rapidity and robustness.The purpose of this paper was to select the suitable analytical method according to the requirement.The two methods had their own characteristics and were compared with regard to the detection limit,linear range,recovery,precision and influence factors of detection.Paired measurements were also applied to the analysis of commercially available 22 aquatic products.HPLC results were evaluated by comparison with the HPLC-MS/MS analysis.The results showed that compared with HPLC,the detection sensitivity of HPLC-MS/MS was higher.The use of HPLC-MS/MS could realize rapid,sensitive and accurate detection.HPLC results compared with HPLC-MS/MS data showed to underestimate enrofloxacin content of about 2% and a correlation coefficient of 0.969 was calculated between the two methods.HPLC method is simple and rapid,and its performance could meet the requirements of the domestic and international legislation.HPLC analytical method which is provided for basic food safety inspection agencies in the routine analysis is suitable for preliminary screening of quinolones,while HPLC-MS/MS could be a more accurate quantitative determination method for measuring quinolones content in aquatic products for the reason that detailed structure information is provided by mass spectrometry.