Rapid analysis of ractopamine in pig tissues by dummy-template imprinted solid-phase extraction coupling with surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

• A SERS method was developed for the rapid analysis of ractopamine.
• Ritodrine used as the dummy-template of ractopamine for molecularly imprinted polymer.
• The dummy-template MIP showed high selectivity to ractopamine used for SPE.
• The method was successfully applied for the rapid analysis of ractopamine in pig tissues.

Ritodrine has similar skeleton structure to ractopamine and it was selected as the dummy-template molecule to synthesize the molecular imprinted polymers (MIPs). The MIPs exhibited better selectivity to ractopamine than to the dummy-template molecule: the imprint factor for ractopamine was 8.9, while 7.6 for ritodrine. The MIPs were used as sorbents in solid-phase extraction for selective enrichment of ractopamine, and some key parameters were optimized. After that, a rapid surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy method was developed for analysis of ractopamine and isoxuprine in pig tissue samples. Under the optimal conditions, good linearity was achieved in the range of 20.0–200.0 μg/L for ractopamine and isoxsuprine at 842 cm−1 and 993 cm−1, respectively. The limits of detection were 3.1–4.3 μg/L, which were lower than the maximum allowed by U. S. Food and Drug Administration. The recoveries of ractopamine and isoxsuprine were 72.4–79.7% and 71.0–78.2% for the spiked pork and pig liver, respectively, while the relative standard deviations ranging from 7.4% to 13.0%. The results suggest that the proposed method is sensitive and selective, and it has good potential on the quantitative analysis of trace amounts of β-agonists in complex samples.

Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide