Determination of phenylethanolamine A in animal hair, tissues and feeds by reversed phase liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry with QuEChERS

A simple, sensitive and reliable analytical method was developed for the determination of a new beta-agonist phenylethanolamine A in animal hair, tissues and animal feeds by ultra high performance liquid chromatography-positive electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-ESI-MS/MS) with QuEChERS. Samples were extracted with acetonitrile/water (80:20, v/v). The extract was purified through QuEChERS method, then was dried with nitrogen and residues were redissolved in mobile phase for hair sample or directly diluted with 0.1% formic acid in water for other samples, and analyzed by LC-MS/MS on a Waters Acquity BEH C-18 column with 0.1% formic acid in water/methanol as mobile phase with gradient elution. The samples were quantified using phenylethanolamine A-D-3 as internal standards. The proposed method was validated according to the European Commission Decision 2002/657/EC determining specificity, decision limit (CC alpha), detection capability (CC beta), recovery, precision, linearity, robustness and stability. The CC alpha values ranged from 0.10 to 0.26 mu g/kg. The CC beta values ranged from 0.20 to 0.37 mu g/kg. The mean recoveries of 95.4-108.9% with intra-day CVs of 2.2-5.6% and inter-day CVs of 3.1-6.2% were obtained. The method is demonstrated to be suitable for the determination of phenylethanolamine A in animal hair, tissues and animal feeds. The total time required for the analysis of one sample except animal hair sample, including sample preparation, was about 25 min. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.