Study of 4-quinolone antibiotics in biological samples by short-column liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry

Simultaneous detection and confirmation of 15 quinolone antibiotics was accomplished by fast short-column liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS). Several physicochemical parameters such as hydrophobicity and aqueous dissociation constants were calculated from the structural formulas of the quinolone drugs, and their impact on both chromatographic and mass spectrometric behavior was studied. Additionally, a possible influence of bulk solution pH on electrospray detection sensitivity of 4-quinolones was investigated and compared to predictions based on solution-phase equilibria, A signal intensity comparison of the MH+ ions at different pH values for all 15 compounds did not reveal any pH effect, despite variations by several orders of magnitude in equilibrium concentrations in bulk solution. To demonstrate the potential of the LC/MS/MS method, its application to trace analysis in several biological matrices such as milk, salmon, and human urine was investigated. The method was shown to be sensitive with detection limits down to 1 ppb in both milk and salmon tissue. The versatility of the method was also exhibited by utilizing it for rapid identification of urinary metabolites of ciprofloxacin. Finally, a new complementary approach is described for confirmatory analyses of 4-quinolones by means of a quasi-MS/MS/MS technique involving in-source collision-induced dissociation. it is shown that LC/quasi-MS/MS/MS can significantly enhance structural information and, thus, the specificity of analysis for the investigated 4-quinolones.