Abstract:

A method of high performance liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (HPLC-QqQ MS) in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode for simultaneous determination of five Amadori compounds in tobacco has been developed. The separation was performed on an XBridge^TM Amide column (250 mm×4.6 mm, 3.5 μm) by gradient elution using methanol and water as mobile phases. The linearity of this method was good with the correlation coefficients (r) of 0.9895-0.9989. The limits of detection (S/N=3) were from 3.51 μg/L to 14.86 μg/L, and the limits of quantitation (S/N=10) were from 10.18 μg/L to 44.58 μg/L. The recoveries varied from 92.6% to 123.6% with the relative standard deviations (RSDs) less than 9.4%. The established method is rapid, accurate, robust and convenient, and it could be applied to the measurement of the five Amadori compounds in tobacco and cigarettes.

Key words: Amadori compounds, high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS), Maillard reaction, precursor aroma, tobacco