Rapid determination of 19 quinolone residues in spiked fish and pig muscle by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) tandem mass spectrometry

A multiresidue method has been developed for the confirmation and quantification of 19 quinolones (enrofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin, ofloxacin, flumequine, oxolinic acid, difloxacin, sarafloxacin, sparfloxacin, danofloxacin, fleroxacin, marbofloxacin, enoxacin, orbifloxacin, pefloxacin, nalidixic acid, pipemidic acid, lomefloxacin and cinoacin) in pig and fish by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The samples were extracted with acetonitrile, analytes separated by LC on a C18 column using 0.1% formic acid–methanol with a linear gradient elution programme, and detected by MS/MS. The linear range was 0.3–50 µg kg–1 with correlation coefficients (r) more than 0.9956. The limits of detection were 0.1 µg kg–1. Mean recoveries for each analyte in pig muscle and fish ranged from 75.3% to 96.3% and from 79.7% to 94.2% with relative standard deviations below 10%. The method is fast, safe, sensitive and precise, and can be used simultaneously to analyse residual quinolones.