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Unambiguous identification of thiouracil residue in urine collected in non‐treated bovine by tandem and high‐resolution mass spectrometry
Author(s) -
Pinel Gaud,
Maume Daniel,
Deceuninck Yoann,
Andre François,
Le Bizec Bruno
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
rapid communications in mass spectrometry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.528
H-Index - 136
eISSN - 1097-0231
pISSN - 0951-4198
DOI - 10.1002/rcm.2711
Subject(s) - chemistry , residue (chemistry) , chromatography , tandem mass spectrometry , high resolution , thiouracil , mass spectrometry , tandem , urine , organic chemistry , biochemistry , medicine , thyroid , materials science , remote sensing , composite material , geology
Thyrostats are banned compounds in Europe since 1981 (directive 81/602/EC) because of their carcinogenic and teratogenic properties. However, the occurrence of thiouracil (TU) in bovine urines from national monitoring plans with quantifications in the range 1–10 µg · L −1 occasionally raises the question of its origin which might either be the consequence of an illegal administration or the result of ‘endogenous’ production. In order to definitively and unambiguously identify the so‐called thiouracil signal in non‐treated bovine urines, independent mass spectrometry (MS) approaches have been used. Different reagents (3‐IBBr, 3‐BrBBr and PFBBr) were used to derivatise and to extract TU from urine samples and characterisation of the residues was performed by means of different MS approaches [LC/(ESI‐)MS/MS, GC/(EI+)MS/MS and HRMS (EI and NCI)]. These combined strategies allowed for an independent and confident identification of TU in bovine urine samples collected from animals never treated with any thyrostatic drugs. This result is of prime importance for laboratories and risk managers involved in the field of forbidden growth promoters control: detection of TU residue in bovine urine will have to be carefully considered as a non‐systematic proof of illegal administration. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.