Assessment of antiretroviral drugs in vegetables: Evaluation of microwave‐assisted extraction performance with and without solid‐phase extraction cleanup

Abstract

This study presents unique data on concentrations of antiretroviral drugs, (abacavir, nevirapine, and efavirenz) in the root, leaf, and fruit vegetables. The microwave‐assisted extraction, solid‐phase extraction, and liquid chromatography coupled with photodiode array detection were applied to assess antiretroviral drugs in vegetable samples. The analytical method showed high precision with the linearity (R2) greater than 0.99, with acceptable, and accuracy with recoveries ranging from 85 to 103% for microwave‐assisted extraction and from 87% to 104% for solid‐phase extraction. The limit of detection and quantification ranged from 0.020 to 0.032 μg/kg and from 0.068 to 0.109 μg/kg for microwave‐assisted extraction and from 0.019 to 0.066 μg/L and 0.065 to 0.22 μg/L for solid‐phase extraction, respectively and the repeatability of the methods as relative standard deviation was a less than 6%. The antiretroviral drugs concentration range obtained in vegetable samples is not detected–1.48 ± 0.5 μg/kg for abacavir, not detected–27.9 ± 1.2 μg/kg for nevirapine, and not detected–13.14 ± 0.1 μg/kg for efavirenz. The microwave‐assisted extraction method with solid‐phase extraction cleanup resulted in low concentration compared to microwave‐assisted extraction without cleanup which could be due to its high limits of detection and quantification making it less sensitive. However, the concentration difference was not significant. Root vegetables (beetroot) exhibited high concentrations of antiretroviral drugs, while nevirapine was found to have high concentration and as a dominant compound.

LC-HRMS method for study of pharmaceutical uptake in plants: effect of pH under aeroponic condition

“…The extraction procedure is essential for the pre-concentration of analytes, sample complexity reduction, and elimination of the matrix effect. For extraction of PhACs and their metabolites from plants, liquid extraction (LE) with simple polar solvent or solvent mixture, solid-phase extraction (SPE), accelerated solvent extraction (ASE), liquid-liquid extraction (LLE), microwave-assisted extraction (MAE), and QuEChERS (Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, and Safe) were used (Kunene and Mahlambi, 2023 ; Herklotz et al, 2010 ; Matamoros et al, 2012 ; Zhang et al, 2013 ; Bartha et al, 2014 ; Cui and Schröder, 2016 ; Martínez-Piernas et al, 2018 ). Concerning the white chemistry concept (Nowak et al, 2021 ), modern sorbent or solvent-based microextraction techniques can be used (Yang et al, 2013 ).…”