[Determination of five aflatoxins in Chinese patent medicines and medicinal herbs by immunoaffinity extraction coupled with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry].

A method for the determination of five aflatoxins (B1 , B2, G1 , G2, M1 ) in Chinese patent medicines and medicinal herbs by immunoaffinity extraction coupled with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) was developed. The samples were extracted with 80% (v/v) methanol-water solution, followed by stepwise purification using an immunoaffinity column. The target compounds were then eluted with methanol. The extract was filtered then analyzed. With the gradient elution using a binary mobile phase containing of 0.1% formic acid-5 mmol/L ammonium acetate solution and methanol, the five aflatoxins were separated on an UHPLC BEH C18 column, followed by positive electrospray ionization and multi-reaction monitoring (MRM) provided by a triple-quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer. The limits of detection for the standard solution of aflatoxins ranged from 0.05-0.3 microg/L. The linear response was observed in the spiked concentration range of 0.5-100 microg/L with the correlation coefficients higher than 0.99. The spiked recoveries were within 62.3%-82.4% at the spiked levels of 1.0 microg/kg and 5.0 microg/kg for all the five aflatoxins with the relative standard deviations (RSDs) below 10% (n = 6). The developed method is sensitive, accurate, and reproducible with the reasonable recoveries, and can be applied to the determination of the 5 aflatoxins in the Chinese traditional patent medicines, medicinal herbs as well as other similar complex matrices.