LC/MS/MS analysis of α-tocopherol and coenzyme Q10 content in lyophilized royal jelly, beebread and drone homogenate.

This study shows the results of application liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) for assay of the content of α-tocopherol and coenzyme Q10 in bee products of animal origin, i.e. royal jelly, beebread and drone homogenate. The biological matrix was removed using extraction with n-hexane. It was found that drone homogenate is a rich source of coenzyme Q10 . It contains only 8 ± 1 µg/g of α-tocopherol and 20 ± 2 µg/g of coenzyme Q10 . The contents of assayed compounds in royal jelly were 16 ± 3 and 8 ± 0.2 µg/g of α-tocopherol and coenzyme Q10 , respectively. Beebread appeared to be the richest of α-tocopherol. Its level was 80 ± 30 µg/g, while the level of coenzyme Q10 was only 11.5 ± 0.3 µg/g.