Determination of trenbolone and zeranol in bovine muscle and liver by liquid chromatography-electrospray mass spectrometry.

A sensitive and selective method using liquid chromatography (LC)-electrospray mass spectrometry for the determination of growth promoters, trenbolone and zeranol, in bovine muscle and liver has been developed. The LC separation was performed on a Zorbax XDB-C18 column (150x2.1 mm I.D.) using 0.005% acetic acid-acetonitrile (60:40, v/v) as the mobile phase at a flow-rate of 0.2 ml/min. The positive ionization produced typical (M+H)+ molecular ions of alpha-trenbolone and beta-trenbolone. On the other hand, the negative mode produced (M-H)- ion of zeranol. The calibration graphs for alpha-trenbolone, beta-trenbolone and zeranol were rectilinear from 2.5 pg to 1.0 ng with selected ion monitoring. The drugs were extracted with 0.2% metaphosphoric acid-acetonitrile (6:4, v/v), and the extracts were cleaned up on a OASIS HLB (60 mg) cartridge. The recoveries of the hormones from bovine muscle fortified at 2 ng/g were 82.3-85.1%, and detection limits were 0.5 ng/g for each drug.