Degradation of fluoroquinolone antibiotics and identification of metabolites/transformation products by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry

Antibiotics are a therapeutic class widely found in environmental matrices and extensively studied due to its persistence and implications for multi-resistant bacteria development. This work presents an integrated approach of analytical multi-techniques on assessing biodegradation of fluorinated antibiotics at a laboratory-scale microcosmos to follow removal and formation of intermediate compounds. Degradation of four fluoroquinolone antibiotics, namely Ofloxacin (OFL), Norfloxacin (NOR), Ciprofloxacin (CPF) and Moxifloxacin (MOX), at 10 mg L−1 using a mixed bacterial culture, was assessed for 60 days. The assays were followed by a developed and validated analytical method of LC with fluorescence detection (LC–FD) using a Luna Pentafluorophenyl (2) 3 μm column. The validated method demonstrated good selectivity, linearity (r2 > 0.999), intra-day and inter-day precisions (RSD < 2.74%) and accuracy. The quantification limits were 5 μg L−1 for OFL, NOR and CPF and 20 μg L−1 for MOX. The optimized conditions allowed picturing metabolites/transformation products formation and accumulation during the process, stating an incomplete mineralization, also shown by fluoride release. OFL and MOX presented the highest (98.3%) and the lowest (80.5%) extent of degradation after 19 days of assay, respectively. A representative number of samples was selected and analyzed by LC–MS/MS with triple quadrupole and the molecular formulas were confirmed by a quadruple time of flight analyzer (QqTOF). Most of the intermediates were already described as biodegradation and/or photodegradation products in different conditions; however unknown metabolites were also identified. The microbial consortium, even when exposed to high levels of FQ, presented high percentages of degradation, never reported before for these compounds.