Simultaneous quantification of several classes of antibiotics in water, sediments, and fish muscles by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

Precise and sensitive methods for the simultaneous determination of different classes of antibiotics, including sulphonamides, fluoroquinolones, macrolides, tetracyclines, and trimethoprim in surface water, sediments, and fish muscles were developed. In water samples, drugs were extracted with solid-phase extraction (SPE) by passing 1000 mL of water through hydrophilic lipophilic balanced (HLB) SPE cartridges. Sediment samples were solvent-extracted, followed by tandem SPE (strong anion exchange (SAX) + HLB) clean-ups. Fish muscles were extracted by a mixture of acetonitrile and citric buffer (80:20, v/v) solution, and cleaned by SPE. Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) with multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) detection was employed to quantify all compounds. The recoveries for the antibiotics in the spiked water, sediment, and fish samples were 60.2%–95.8%, 48.1%–105.3%, and 59.8%–103.4%, respectively. The methods were applied to samples taken from Dianchi Lake, China. It showed that concentrations of the detected antibiotics ranged from limits of quantification (LOQ) to 713.6 ng·L−1 (ofloxacin) in surface water and from less than LOQ to 344.8 μg·kg−1 (sulphamethoxazole) in sediments. The number of detected antibiotics and the overall antibiotic concentrations were higher in the urban area than the rural area, indicating the probable role of livestock and human activities as important sources of antibiotic contamination. In fish muscles, the concentration of norfloxacin was the highest (up to 38.5 μg·kg−1), but tetracyclines and macrolides were relatively low. Results showed that the methods were rapid and sensitive, and capable of determining several classes of antibiotics from each of the water, sediment, and fish matrices in a single run.