Determination of Chloramphenicol in Honey Using Salting-Out Assisted Liquid-Liquid Extraction Coupled with Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry and Validation According to 2002/657 European Commission Decision

• Published in: Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 25; no. 15; p. 3481
• Main Authors: Rizzo, Serena, Russo, Mariateresa, Labra, Massimo, Campone, Luca, Rastrelli, Luca
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 31.07.2020; MDPI
• Subjects: Animal Diseases - drug therapy; Animal Diseases - microbiology; Animals; Anti-Bacterial Agents - analysis; Anti-Bacterial Agents - therapeutic use; Antibiotics; Bacterial infections; Beekeeping; Bees - microbiology; chloramphenicol; Chloramphenicol - analysis; Chloramphenicol - therapeutic use; Chromatography; Chromatography, Liquid - methods; Commission Decision 2002/657/EC; Disease; Drug Residues - analysis; Electrolytes; Enterococcaceae; experimental design optimization; Food; Food Contamination - analysis; Honey; Honey - analysis; Liquid-Liquid Extraction - methods; Mass spectrometry; Methods; Optimization; Paenibacillus larvae; Protein synthesis; salting-out assisted liquid-liquid extraction; Scientific imaging; Tandem Mass Spectrometry - methods; Variance analysis; Veterinary Drugs - analysis; Veterinary Drugs - therapeutic use; Commission Decision 2002/657/EC; chloramphenicol; experimental design optimization; salting-out assisted liquid-liquid extraction; honey
• ISSN: 1420-3049; 1420-3049
• DOI: 10.3390/molecules25153481

Honey is a natural food widely consumed due to its high content in nutrients and bioactive substances. In order to prevent hive infections, xenobiotics such as pesticides and antibiotics are commonly used. Chloramphenicol (CAP) is a broad-spectrum antibiotic used to treat honeybee larvae diseases. However, CAP has toxic and nondose-dependent effects in sensitive subjects; for this reason, its use has been prohibited in food-producing animals, such as the honeybee. In this study, we proposed a rapid, simple, and cheap analytical method, based on salting-out assisted liquid-liquid extraction coupled with UHPLC MS/MS detection for the accurate determination of CAP in honey to be used in routine analyses. The parameters that influence the extraction efficiency have been optimized using an experimental design in order to maximize the recovery of the analyte by reducing the matrix effects. Therefore, the developed method was internally validated according to the 2002/657/EC Decision guidelines and applied to the analysis of 96 honey samples.