Determination of gentamicin C components in fish tissues through SPE-Hypercarb-HPLC-MS/MS

In this work, an HPLC/MS/MS method for determination of gentamicin C components in fish tissues was developed based on strong cation exchange solid-phase extraction (SPE) purification coupled with Hypercarb chromatographic column in separation mode. Sample was extracted using trichloroacetic acid aqueous solution containing EDTA. Ion-pairing reagents were not needed because of the “graphite polarity retention effect” of the Hypercarb chromatographic column. HPLC-MS/MS was performed in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode for simultaneous qualitative and quantitative analyses (using matrix external standard) of gentamicin C components in fish tissues. Good linearity was obtained for the target analytes within the concentration range from 0.0100 to 0.500 mg/L. The limits of quantification (LOQ) of this method were 10.0, 20.0, and 20.0 μg/kg for C1, C1a, and sum of C2 + C2a, respectively. The average recoveries of gentamicin C components were 80.0%-110% when spiked at three levels with the blank carp (Cyprinus carpio) matrix, and the relative standard deviations (RSD) were all less than 15% (n = 6). In addition, for the features of simple operation, high sensitivity and good reproducibility, the proposed method has been successfully applied for detection of gentamicin residues in fish tissues during actual breeding.