Development and Validation of an Analytical Method for β-Agonists in Livestock and Fishery Products Using LC-MS/MS

BACKGROUND: The β -agonists known as phenyl etha-nolamine derivatives have a conjugated aromatic ring with amino group. They are used as tocolytic agents and bronchodilator to human and animal generally, and some of them are used as growth promoters to livestock. METHODS AND RESULTS: β -agonists in samples were extracted by 0.4 N perchloric acid and ethyl acetate. The target compounds were analyzed by liquid chromatog-raphy-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS). Validation of method was performed according to CODEX guidelines (CAC/GL-71). The matrix matched calibration gave correlation coefficients>0.98, and the obtained recoveries were in the range of 62.0-109.8%, with relative standard deviation ≤ 20.1%. In addition, a survey was performed to inspect any residual β -agonist from 100 samples of livestock and fishery products and ractopamine was detected in one of the 100 samples. CONCLUSION(S): In this study, we established the analytical method for β -agonists through using the expanded target compounds and samples. And we anticipate that the established method would be used for analysis to determine veterinary drug residues in livestock and fishery products.