Determination of three coriaria lactones in honey by ultra high performance liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry

A method for the determination of three coriaria lactone residues in honey was developed using ultra high performance liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry. The honey samples were extracted with 0.2 mol/L phosphate buffer solution (pH = 7.5), and the extracts were cleaned up with Waters HLB solid phase extraction cartridges. The extracted components were separated on a Phenomenex C18 column by gradient elution. The qualitative and quantitative analyses were operated under t-MS2 by high resolution mass spectrometry. The results showed that the limits of detection and quantification for the three coriaria lactones in a spiked blank honey were 0.05 mg/kg and 0.1 mg/kg, respectively. The recoveries of the three coriaria lactones spiked in blank honey samples at the levels of 0.1 to 0.5 mg/kg were 86.3%-95.6% with the RSDs of 3.0%-8.4%. The method was applied for the determination of the manuka honey from New Zealand, and tutin was detected in one of the samples. The results showed that the method is suitable for the determination of the three coriaria lactone residues in honey.