Abstract
We evaluated the performance of liquid chromatography coupled with atmospheric-pressure chemical ionization (LC-APCI-MS) and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS) for the simultaneous extraction of five organophosphorus and two carbamate insecticides from human serum. Nonpolar and polar pesticides were simultaneously extracted from serum by solid-phase extraction using Oasis HLB columns connected with the activated carbon Jr. The chromatographic separation was performed on an Xterra MS C18 column (150 × 2.1 mm, 3.5 μm) using 0.1% acetic acid/0.05% acetic acid in methanol as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 0.2 mL/min. The assay linearity showed good results with correlation coefficients of >0.996. The lower limit of quantification was between 0.01 and 0.5 μg/mL. Interday assay reproducibility (coefficient of variation) was between 2.5 and 18.4%, and the recoveries were between 82.0 and 108.3%. The applicability of this method was also demonstrated for the analysis of serum samples from clinical poisoning cases.
