Improvement of accuracy for the determination of vitamin A in infant formula by isotope dilution-liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry

• Published in: Food chemistry Vol. 126; no. 3; pp. 1393 - 1398
• Main Authors: Lim, Young Ok, Kim, Byungjoo, Ahn, Seonghee, Kim, Jeongkwon
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.06.2011; [Amsterdam]: Elsevier Science; Elsevier
• Subjects: accuracy; Biological and medical sciences; chemical degradation; Chromatography; food analysis; food composition; Food industries; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; ID-LC/MS; Infant formula; infant formulas; isotope dilution technique; isotopes; liquid chromatography; mass spectrometry; Method validation; oxidation; Reference method; reliability; sampling; uncertainty; Vitamin A; vitamin content; Vitamin A; ID-LC/MS; Method validation; Infant formula; Reference method; Validation; Reference; Vitamin; Isotope dilution; Liquid chromatography; Method; Improvement; Accuracy; Mass spectrometry
• ISSN: 0308-8146; 1873-7072
• DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2010.11.118

► ID-LC/MS method for the accurate determination of vitamin A in infant formula. ► Sample preparation method for preventing oxidative degradation of vitamin A. ► Measurement uncertainty is improved to be less than 1%. ► Presentation of method validation data. Analysis of vitamin A in food has been an intricate subject due to its labile properties. In this study, an isotope dilution-liquid chromatography/mass spectrometric (ID-LC/MS) method was established as a candidate reference method for the accurate determination of vitamin A in infant formula. We found that the oxidative degradation of vitamin A in sample preparation processes is a key fact that hampers reliability of measurement results. Therefore, sample preparation processes were carefully designed to minimise oxidative degradation of vitamin A by preventing sample from exposure to air. Similar cautions were applied for the preparation of calibration solutions. Both within-day repeatability and among-day reproducibility tests of the ID-LC/MS method showed less than 1.0% of relative standard deviation, and the measurement uncertainty by this method is estimated to be less than 1.0%. The newly designed method showed greatly improved performance compared to methods reported in other literatures.