Abstract:

A method for the determination of ribavirin and amantadine in chicken has been developed by ultra performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). After extracted by 1% (volume percentage) trichloroacetic acid solution-acetonitrile (1:1, v/v) and purified by a Supelco LC-SCX cartridge, the samples were loaded onto an Acquity UPLC BEH Hillic column (150 mm×2.1 mm, 1.7 μm)and separated with gradient elution. The electrospray was operated in the positive mode and the samples were monitored by the multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. The limits of quantification (LOQs, S/N=10) of ribavirin and amantadine were 4.0 μg/kg. The calibration curves showed good linearity in the range of 10.0-100.0 μg/L, and the correlation coefficients (r²) were not lower than 0.99. When the spiked levels were 4.0, 8.0 and 20.0 μg/kg, the recoveries of ribavirin and amantadine in chicken ranged from 78% to 102.5%, with the relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 2.2%-7.6%. The results indicate that the method is simple, rapid, sensitive and suitable for the qualitative and quantitative analyses of ribavirin and amantadine in chicken samples.

Key words: amantadine, chicken, ribavirin, ultra performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS)