Ultrasound-assisted enzymatic hydrolysis for iodinated amino acid extraction from edible seaweed before reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography–inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry

• Strategies for iodinated amino acid extraction from edible seaweed were developed.
• Ultrasound assisted pancreatin hydrolysis allowed extraction yields close to 100% for some seaweed types.
• RPC-HPLC hyphenated with inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry was used.
• Iodinated amino acid (MIT and DIT) and iodide were assessed in edible seaweed.

The combination of reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was used for the determination of monoiodotyrosine (MIT) and diiodotyrosine (DIT) in edible seaweed. A sample pre-treatment based on ultrasound assisted enzymatic hydrolysis was optimized for the extraction of these iodinated amino acids. Pancreatin was selected as the most adequate type of enzyme, and parameters affecting the extraction efficiency (pH, temperature, mass of enzyme and extraction time) were evaluated by univariate approaches. In addition, extractable inorganic iodine (iodide) was also quantified by anion exchange high performance liquid chromatography (AE-HPLC) coupled with ICP-MS. The proposed procedure offered limits of detection of 1.1 and 4.3 ng g−1 for MIT and DIT, respectively. Total iodine contents in seaweed, as well as total iodine in enzymatic digests were measured by ICP-MS after microwave assisted alkaline digestion with tetramethylamonium hydroxide (TMAH) for total iodine assessment, and also by treating the pancreatin extracts (extractable total iodine assessment). The optimized procedure was successfully applied to five different types of edible seaweed. The highest total iodine content, and also the highest iodide levels, was found in the brown seaweed Kombu (6646 ± 45 μg g−1). Regarding iodinated amino acids, Nori (a red seaweed) was by far the one with the highest amount of both species (42 ± 3 and 0.41 ± 0.024 μg g−1 for MIT and DIT, respectively). In general, MIT concentrations were much higher than the amounts of DIT, which suggests that iodine from iodinated proteins in seaweed is most likely bound in the form of MIT residues.