A method of high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry(HPLC-MS/MS) was developed for the determination of nine pyrrolizidine alkaloid residues in animal derived foods.Honey

dairy and animal liver samples were dissolved with 0.05 mol/L hydrochloric acid

5% trichloroacetic acid and acetonitrile containing 1% acetic acid

respectively

then enriched and purified with a strong cationic solid phase extraction column(Waters Oasis MCX).The separation was carried out on a Phenomenex Kinetex C18 column(4.6 mm×100 mm

2.6 μm) by gradient elution with methanol-0.1% formic acid-5 mmol/L ammonium acetate as mobile phase.The separated compounds were detected in positive electrospray ionization(ESI+) under multiple reaction monitoring(MRM) mode.The calibration curves for 9 alkaloids were linear in the mass concentration range of 0-100 ng/mL with correlation coefficients(r) larger than 0.99.The average recoveries at there spiked levels of 10

20 and 50 μg/kg ranged from 71.0% to 103%

with relative standard deviations(RSD) of 3.0%-9.8%.The limits of detection and limits of quantitation(LOQs) of the method were 3 μg/kg and 10 μg/kg

respectively.The method is simple

rapid and accurate

and is suitable for the simultaneous determination of pyrrolizidine alkaloids in animal derived foods.