Determination of aminoglycoside antibiotics by reversed-phase ion-pair high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with pulsed amperometry and ion spray mass spectrometry.

This work constitutes a preliminary investigation of a high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC)-mass spectrometric (MS) method for confirming aminoglycoside residues in bovine tissues. A reversed-phase ion-pair HPLC method for the separation of four aminoglycosides was developed using volatile ion-pairing agents and optimized for detection with an ion spray HPLC-MS interface. The method is also compatible with a commercial pulsed amperometric detector that was used for HPLC method development and that may be useful for the screening and quantification phases of a regulatory method. Several column phases, eluent compositions, and pairing ions were evaluated for optimum HPLC-MS sensitivity. Detection limits are in the low nanogram range with the pulsed amperometric detector and with HPLC-MS in the selected ion monitoring mode. Results with bovine kidney, fortified to 20 ppm and extracted by matrix solid-phase dispersion, obtained using both detectors are presented.