Simultaneous determination of multiclass pesticide residues in human plasma using a mini QuEChERS method

Abstract

Blood is one of the most assessable matrices for the determination of pesticide residue exposure in humans. Effective sample preparation/cleanup of biological samples is very important in the development of a sensitive, reproducible, and robust method. In the present study, a simple, cost-effective, and rapid gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method has been developed and validated for simultaneous analysis of 31 multiclass (organophosphates, organochlorines, and synthetic pyrethroids) pesticide residues in human plasma by means of a mini QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe) method. We have adopted a modified version of the QuEChERS method, which is primarily used for pesticide residue analysis in food commodities. The QuEChERS method was optimized by use of different extraction solvents and different amounts and combinations of salts and sorbents (primary-secondary amines and C) for the dispersive solid-phase extraction step. The results show that a combination of ethyl acetate with 2% acetic acid, magnesium sulfate (0.4 g), and solid-phase extraction for sample cleanup with primary-secondary amines (50 mg) per 1-mL volume of plasma is the most suitable for generating acceptable results with high recoveries for all multiclass pesticides from human plasma. The mean recovery ranged from 74% to 109% for all the analytes. The limit of quantification and limit of detection of the method ranged from 0.12 to 13.53 ng mL and from 0.04 to 4.10 ng mL respectively. The intraday precision and the interday precision of the method were 6% or less and 11% or less respectively. This method would be useful for the analysis of a wide range of pesticides of interest in a small volume of clinical and/or forensic samples to support biomonitoring and toxicological applications. Graphical Abstract Pesticide residues analysis in human plasma using mini QuEChERS method.

Micro QuEChERS-based method for the simultaneous biomonitoring in whole blood of 360 toxicologically relevant pollutants for wildlife

“…For this reason, sensitive and specific multi-residue techniques covering a wide spectrum of toxic or potentially toxic environmental pollutants, can substantially contribute to minimizing the costs and maximizing the chance of assessing the exposure of wildlife to most of the relevant chemicals. Thus, some other authors have developed multi-residue and multi-class methods for the determination of drugs (Qie et al, 2019), or of pesticides (Shin et al, 2018;Srivastava et al, 2017), or of POPs in blood (Vijayasarathy et al, 2019), even some using a very small amount of sample (Shin et al, 2018). However, to our knowledge, none has been developed for the simultaneous detection of contaminants for all of these groups together.…”

Application of 2-Picolylamine Derivatized Ultra-high Performance Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry for the Determination of Short-chain Fatty Acids in Feces Samples

“…This QuEChERS was used without dichloromethane and other hazardous solvents for the sample preparation of biological samples. 18 The 10 SCFAs and derivatized reaction is shown in Fig. 1, and examined for model mice feces in this study.…”

Monitoring of Organophosphorus Pesticides in Brazilian Food

“…Due to many pesticides on the market, the use of methods capable of analyzing many agrochemicals in a single analysis is currently the most common approach [32][33][34][35][36]. In the multiresidue method, different active ingredients of pesticides are simultaneously analyzed in the same sample, being able to detect several metabolites [37].…”