Determination of nitrofuran metabolites in poultry muscle and eggs by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

The use of nitrofurans in food-producing animals has been banned in EU. Detection of the protein-bound nitrofuran metabolites is the best approach to evaluate their utilization. A fast, sensitive and reliable LC–MS–MS method is presented to analyze simultaneously the metabolites of four commonly used nitrofuran drugs, furazolidone, furaltadone, nitrofurazone and nitrofurantoin. The sample clean up was performed by a single liquid–liquid extraction step, after a hydrolysis and derivatisation process. Separation of the molecules was performed by liquid chromatography in a C18 column (100 mm × 2.1 mm, 4 μm) at room temperature. The quantitative and confirmatory determination of these metabolites was performed by multiple reactions monitoring (MRM). Limits of quantification of 0.5 ng g−1 were achieved and the total analysis was accomplished in 5 min. This protocol has been applied to identify contaminated samples of poultry muscle and egg products.