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Supercritical fluid extraction and quantification of aflatoxins in Zizyphi Fructus by liquid chromatography/atmospheric pressure chemical ionization tandem mass spectrometry
Author(s) -
Liau BingChung,
Jong TingTing,
Lee MawRong,
Chang ChiehMing J.
Publication year - 2007
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.2870
Subject(s) - atmospheric pressure chemical ionization , chemistry , chromatography , mass spectrometry , electrospray ionization , liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry , chemical ionization , tandem mass spectrometry , extraction (chemistry) , analytical chemistry (journal) , supercritical fluid , ionization , organic chemistry , ion
An integrated method combining supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) with liquid chromatography/atmospheric pressure chemical ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC/APCI‐MS/MS) was developed and successfully applied to quantify aflatoxins (AFs) in Zizyphi Fructus (fruits of Zizyphus jujube ), a traditional Chinese medicine. To minimize the potential interferences caused by the complex matrix in Zizyphi Fructus, a SFE pretreatment was performed. In addition, electrospray ionization (ESI) and atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) spectra were also compared. The results showed that the calibration curves of AFB 1 , AFB 2 , AFG 1 , and AFG 2 were all linear over the range of concentration from 1 to 50 ng/g, the squared correlation coefficients (r 2 ) were over 0.995, and the detection limits of the method were between 0.17 and 0.32 ng/g. It showed high recovery and good precision in quantitating AFs in Zizyphi Fructus without further clean‐up. Further, fragmentation pathways of protonated AFs in APCI‐MS/MS were clearly proposed which could predict the existence of AFB or AFG series. To test the empirical validity of the proposed methodology in this paper, eight random samples of Zizyphi Fructus collected from supermarkets and traditional Chinese medicine stores in different geographical areas of Taiwan were analyzed. The results indicated that low levels of AFs were detected in only one of them. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.