Simultaneous determination of eight cyclopolypeptide antibiotics in feed by high performance liquid chromatography coupled with evaporation light scattering detection

A high throughput, reliable and reproducible analysis strategy based on high performance liquid chromatography combined to evaporative light scattering detector (HPLC-ELSD) was developed for simultaneous determination of eight cyclopolypeptide antibiotics including vancomycin, polymyxin B (polymyxin B1 and polymyxin B2), polymyxin E (colistin A and colistin B), teicoplanin, bacitracin A, daptomycin and virginiamycin M1 in animal Feed. Feed samples were extracted with methanol-2% formic acid aqueous solution, followed by a solid-phase extraction step using a HLB cartridge. Under the optimum chromatographic conditions and ELSD parameters, target compounds were separated well on a short column filled with biphenyl stationary phase. The method was developed in accordance with pig complete feed and then extended to detect polypeptide antibiotics in piglet premix, pig feed additive, poultry complete feed and fattening pig premix. The results showed that logarithmic calibration curves of eight analytes were linear (r2 > 0.99) within the concentration range of 5-200 mg mL−1. The developed method provided good accuracy and precision for quantification of eight polypeptides in five kinds of feeds with recoveries ranging from 72.0% to 105.4% with relative standard deviations <9.5%. The limits of detection ranged from 2 to 5 mg kg−1. Finally, the method was successfully applied to analyze polypeptide antibiotics in commercial feed.