Ultrasound Assisted Method Development for the Determination of Selected Sulfonamides in Honey Using Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Honey is a highly valuable natural product, which is consumed by people of all age groups unaware of the high load of veterinary drug residues present. Sulfonamides are one such class of veterinary drugs, which are used in apiculture in higher amounts and impose a lot of negative health effects. This paper describes an analytical method developed for simultaneous determination of two Sulfonamides (Sulfamethizole and Trimethoprim) in honey using liquid chromatography- tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Suitable fragmentor voltage and collision energy were optimised for both the analytes. Five different sample preparation techniques based on ultrasonication were evaluated. In which ultrasonication at 80% amplitude, 5 minutes at 45°C gave improved recoveries. On validation, the developed method showed good linearity with r2 values in the range of 0.98-0.99 for both the sulfonamides. The effect of matrix on the method developed was evaluated and was found that the sample matrix does not pose considerable interferences with excellent linearities with r2 values above 0.95 for both the analytes. The method developed was found to be very selective and can find application in routine analysis for the determination of sulfonamides from honey samples.

Antibiotic residues in honey: a public health issue

“…In this sense, the application of antibiotics in beekeeping practices is only allowed under specialized veterinary supervision and with the application of long periods of abstinence (Reybroeck et al, 2012). However, in practice, many beekeepers fail to comply with the correct actions (Manimekalai, Sheshadri, Kumar, & Rawson, 2016).…”