Abstract: A method was developed for the simultaneous determination of 9 heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs) including 2-amino-3-methylimidazo［4,5-f］quinoline (IQ), 2-amino-3,4-dimethylimidazo［4,5-f］quinoline (MeIQ), 2-amino-3,8-dimethylimidazo［4,5-f］quinoxaline (MeIQx), 2-amino-3,4,8-trimethyl-imidazo［4,5-f］quinoxaline (4,8-DiMeIQx), 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo［4,5-b］pyridine (PhIP), 3-amino-1-methyl-5H-pyrido［4,3-b］indole (Trp-p-2), 3-amino-1,4-dimethyl-5H-pyrido［4,3-b］indole (Trp-p-1), 9H-pyrido［3,4-b］indole (Norharman), 1-methyl-9H-pyrido［3,4-b］indole (Harman)) in poultry products using solid-phase extraction-high performance liquid chromatography (SPE-HPLC). The performance of 3 different organic extraction solutions, 2 solid phase extraction (SPE) procedures, three different reversed-phase columns and five different mobile phases were tested for optimizing separation conditions of the 9 HAAs from poultry products. In the end, ethyl acetate was selected as the extraction solution, and the extract was purified with propylsulfonic acid silica (PRS) and C18 SPE columns. The analysis was performed on a TSK-gel ODS-80TM column using a gradient elution with the mobile phases of 0.05 mol/L aqueous acetic acid-ammonium acetate buffer (pH 3.4) and acetonitrile. The results showed that the average recoveries (n=6) of the 9 HAAs spiked in meat samples at 3 levels ranged from 60.47% to 90.55% with the relative standard deviations (RSDs) between 0.49% and 9.74%, and the limits of detection (LODs, S/N=3) were in the range of 0.1~3.6 μg/kg. The method is simple, rapid, accurate and sensitive enough for the analysis of HAAs in poultry products.

Key words: heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), poultry products, solid-phase extraction (SPE)