Simultaneous extraction and determination of 45 veterinary antibiotics in swine manure by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

Abstract A multiresidue method for identification and quantification of 45 veterinary antibiotics (VAs) belonging to 5 different drug classes has been developed, which is the first comprehensive method for pig manure. The proposed method used mixed liquor with methanol: acetonitrile: citrate buffer ratio of 1:1:2 to extract the target VAs from freeze-dried manure. The extracting solution passed through solid-phase extraction (SPE) procedure with Oasis HLB cartridges, which could isolate the target VAs and clean the samples in a single step. After blow-drying and concentrating, the samples were analyzed by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) in one single injection with a run time of 12 min. The average recovery rates for most of the VAs were in the range of 50-120% with relative standard deviations below 15%. Linearity was studied in the range between 2 and 1000 μg/kg using matrix-matched calibration and pure solvent calibration, to evaluate the matrix effects (MEs). The limits of detection (LDs) and quantification (LQs) were in the range of 0.01-1.54 μg/kg and 0.03-5.13 μg/kg respectively, except for penicillin G. Finally, the proposed method was used to quantify VA residues in real swine manure from three farms with different scales; tetracyclines, sulfonamides, quinolones and macrolides were the most frequently detected compounds.