High-performance liquid chromatography using pressurized liquid extraction for the determination of seven tetracyclines in egg, fish and shrimp

A simple and especially rapid method, pressurized liquid extraction, has been developed and applied to the quantitative determination of oxytetracycline, tetracycline, chlortetracycline, minocycline, methacycline, demeclocycline and doxycycline in egg, fish and shrimp. The procedure consisted of a trichloracetic acid/methanol extraction conducted at elevated temperature (60 °C) and pressure (65 bar), without further clean-up, the extraction solution was concentrated and finally for high-performance liquid chromatography analysis. The limits of detection were 5.0–10.0 μg/kg and the limits of quantification were 10.0–15.0 μg/kg for tetracyclines in egg, fish and shrimp using UV detection. The analytical limits CCα and CCβ were also calculated. The recoveries of tetracyclines spiked at levels of 15–300 μg/kg, averaged 75.6–103.5% with the relative standard deviation values less than 11%. The optimized procedure has been successfully applied to real samples in our laboratories. It demonstrated that the new method was robust and useful for monitoring and quantification of 7 tetracycline residues in food of animal origin.

► Pressurized liquid extraction has been developed to the HPLC quantitative determination of seven tetracyclines in egg, fish and shrimp.
► The extraction procedure is simple and rapid.
► The optimized procedure has been successfully applied to real samples.
► The method is robust and useful for monitoring and quantification of tetracycline residues.