Ecofriendly UPLC-MS/MS method for simultaneous assay of veterinary drugs residues; erythromycin, sulfadiazine and trimethoprim in edible chicken tissues, evaluation of method greenness and whiteness

Antibiotics are the key veterinary drugs used in animal food production. The uncontrolled widespread use of antibiotics may lead to the accumulation of their residues in foodstuff such as milk, eggs, meat and muscles. An Ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC/MS/MS) method was developed for simultaneous determination of triple combination of erythromycin thiocyanate (ERY), sulfadiazine sodium (SFD) and trimethoprim (TMP) in their dosage form and in different chicken tissues including muscles and liver samples. A Simple extraction and cleaning up procedure was applied using 0.1 N EDTA and methanol to remove the interfering substances and hence increase the efficiency of chromatographic separation. Moreover, separation was performed within 1.2 min on Agilent Poroshell 123EC-C18 column using a mobile phase mixture of methanol: water (90:10, v/v), at a flow rate of 0.5 mL/min using quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer detector. The method was validated according to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines and linearity was achieved in the range of 2.5–1000 ng/mL for ERY and TMP and in the range of for 5–2000 ng/mL for SFD using tamsulosin (TAM) as an internal standard. All the validation results were within the acceptable ranges. Moreover, Three green metric systems including Green Analytical Procedure Index (GAPI), Analytical Eco-Scale and Analytical GREEnness (AGREE) were used to assess the greenness of the developed method. As well as, the novel blue applicability grade index (BAGI) tool was applied to evaluate the practicality of the method. Results of these tools proved the low environmental impact of the method regarding solvent consumption, analysis time, amount of sample needed, sample treatment procedure, and waste product. The developed method has the privilege of high sensitivity and selectivity as well as short analysis time; hence it can be used to test the presence of the residues of studied drugs in various marketed meat samples to assure human safety and maintain public health. Moreover, it is the first developed method for their analysis in liver samples.