A collaborative study was conducted to evaluate stable isotope dilution assay (SIDA) and LC-MS/MS for the simultaneous determination of aflatoxins B1, B2, G1, and G2; deoxynivalenol; fumonisins B1, B2, and B3; ochratoxin A; HT-2 toxin; T-2 toxin; and zearalenone in foods. Samples were fortified with 12 13C uniformly labeled mycotoxins (13C-IS) corresponding to the native mycotoxins and extracted with acetonitrile/water (50:50 v/v), followed by centrifugation, filtration, and LC-MS/MS analysis. In addition to certified reference materials, the six participating laboratories analyzed corn, peanut butter, and wheat flour fortified with the 12 mycotoxins at concentrations ranging from 1.0 to 1000 ng/g. Using their available LC-MS/MS platform, each laboratory developed in-house instrumental conditions for analysis. The majority of recoveries ranged from 80 to 120% with relative standard derivations (RSDs) <20%. Greater than 90% of the average recoveries of the participating laboratories were in the range of 90-110%, with repeatability RSDr (within laboratory) < 10% and reproducibility RSDR (among laboratory) < 15%. All Z scores of the results of certified reference materials were between -2 and 2. Using 13C-IS eliminated the need for matrix-matched calibration standards for quantitation, simplified sample preparation, and achieved simultaneous identification and quantitation of multiple mycotoxins in a simple LC-MS/MS procedure.

A method validation is reported for the detection and quantification of multiple weight loss drugs in dietary supplement materials. The sample preparation was followed as described in LIB 4549 and the mass spectral measurements were accomplished using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry with electrospray ionization. A method validation was performed at various fortification levels (250 and 1000 g/g) for all 11 drug compounds. The overall recoveries with standard deviation averaged 93.8 6.65% with the majority of individual recoveries in the range of 76% - 110%. The overall limits of quantification (LOQ) for analytes averaged at 10 ng/g. An overall indicator of linearity (R2) averaged at 0.9993 (0.0 250.0 ng/mL). The precision of five replicates of the 50 ng/mL level averaged at 98.4 0.41% with < 1%.https://doi.org/10.21423/jrs-v03n02p015 (DOI assigned 8/7/2019)

A method has been developed to quantify the nitrofuran metabolites 3-amino-5-morphorinomethyl-1,3-oxazolidinone, 3-amino-oxazolidinone, 1-aminohydantoin, and semicarbazide, as well as chloramphenicol in shrimp with a single extraction procedure followed by LC-MS/MS analysis. Dynamic selected reaction monitoring with positive and negative ionization mode switching was used. The method LODs were 0.5 ng/g for the nitrofuran metabolites and 0.3 ng/g for chloramphenicol.

A new method has been developed using flow injection tandem mass spectrometry to semi-quantitatively screen for weight loss drugs, including sibutramine, N-desmethylsibutramine, N-didesmethylsibutramine, and phenolphthalein in dietary supplements. Positive identification of these drugs in samples was further confirmed and quantified by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. The degradation products of sibutramine were observed and identified by LC-MS/MS which include N-desmethylsibutramine, N-didesmethylsibutramine, N-formyldesmethylsibutramine, and N-formyldidesmethylsibutramine. Published by Elsevier B.V.

A flow injection tandem mass spectrometry method (FI-MS/MS) has been developed to detect enzyme phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors, including tadalafil, sildenafil, and vardenafil. Multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) was used to detect the drugs and product ion ratios were used for identification. FI-MS/MS was used for semi-quantification and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was used for further confirmation and quantification. One of 13 samples has been found to be adulterated with prescription levels of tadalafil and also low level of sildenafil. The method can be used for screening large numbers of herbal products for adulteration since it takes less than 1 min without chromatographic separation on a column.

Drug adulteration in dietary supplement materials is a world-wide problem and poses a regulatory challenge. Red yeast rice is a product used by consumers to lower blood levels of cholesterol. While most current methods to analyze red yeast rice are based on HPLC separation with a photo-diode array detector and/or a mass spectrometry detector, which takes 20–40min analysis time per sample, we developed a method to do fast screening of the active compound lovastatin by direct infusion into a mass spectrometer. This method takes under 1min per analysis on the instrument. By using multiple reaction monitoring with five product ions, all the ion ratios of the analyte in the samples are compared with those from the standards for qualitative analysis. The results from this method were compared to the result from the liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry, which uses retention time and one ion ratio as the confirmation criteria. No false positives or false negatives were found among the 12 samples tested. The method also seems to be effective in measuring the lovastatin in red yeast rice semi-quantitatively. This kind of method could be adapted to the screening of other dietary supplement products.