Determination of multiresidue analysis of β-agonists in muscle and viscera using liquid chromatograph/tandem mass spectrometry with Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, and Safe methodologies

The official analytical method of the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration, Ministry of Health and Welfare for testing for veterinary drug residues in foods is the multiresidue analysis of β-agonists. Samples are pretreated through liquid–liquid extraction and solid-phase extraction. This method is time consuming and requires the intensive use of solvents. To improve analytical efficiency and reduce costs, our study incorporated QuEChERS (Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, and Safe) techniques to establish a new method of multiresidue analysis of β-agonists in animal muscle and viscera. The pretreatment time was shortened and solvent usage was minimized. The modified analysis was conducted using liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) and quantification was performed using multiple reaction monitoring. The results demonstrated that the correlation coefficients of the tissue calibration curve were higher than 0.99 and the limit of quantification (LOQ) was 1 ppb. The average recoveries in spiked samples varied from 70% to 120%, and the relative difference between duplicated analysis results was lower than 10%. On the basis of the results, the proposed method was concluded to be an appropriate procedure for determining the presence of β-agonists, and demonstrated the advantages of high recovery rates in spiked samples, high precision, reduced analysis time and solvent usage, and lower costs.