Determination of amphenicol antibiotic residues in aquaculture products by response surface methodology modified QuEChERS method combined with UPLC-MS/MS

A simple and sensitive method for the determination of amphenicol antibiotic (chloramphenicol, thiamphenicol and florfenicol) residues in aquaculture products was developed based on a response surface methodology-modified QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe) method combined with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). The pretreatment method was optimized via single-factor experiments and response surface methodology based on central-composite design to maximize the extraction efficiency and purification effect. The results show that chloramphenicol, thiamphenicol and florfenicol had good linearity in the range of 0.1–50 ng/mL. The recoveries of these amphenicol antibiotics in 12 types of aquaculture products ranged from 78.6% to 106.2% with relative standard deviations less than 12.1%. The method had high sensitivity with the limit of quantification of analytes being 0.01–0.04 μg/kg. Finally, the developed method was used to analyze actual samples. The results show that this method has good application potential for detecting residues of amphenicol antibiotics in aquaculture products.