Analysis of chloramphenicol in honey and royal jelly by LC/MS/MS

A sensitive and selective method using liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS) was developed for the determination of chloramphenicol (CAP) in honey and royal jelly. Mass spectral acquisition was performed in the negative mode by applying multiple reaction monitoring. In LC separation, Mightyl RP-18GP and 10 mmol/L ammonium acetate-acetonitrile were used as the column and mobile phase, respectively. CAP in honey samples was diluted with water, while CAP in royal jelly was extracted with 1% metaphosphoric acid-methanol (4: 6). The solutions were cleaned up with an Oasis HLB cartridge. The quantification limits of CAP in honey and royal jelly were 0.3 ng/g and 1.5 ng/g, respectively. The recoveries of CAP from both honey and royal jelly at the quantification limits were over 92%. Twenty honey products and seven royal jelly products were analyzed by the developed method. CAP was detected in one honey product at 0.6 ng/g and in six royal jelly products at the level of 1.5-17.8 ng/g. These results show that the developed method has satisfactory sensitivity selectivity and is useful for the determination of CAP residues in honey and royal jelly.