Abstract
To investigate multi-residual pesticide monitoring data in commercial Chinese herbal medicines on major markets, an easy, rapid, and selective gas chromatography with mass spectrometry (GC/MS/MS) method was established for simultaneously determining multi-residual pesticides including organochlorine, pyrethroid, carbamate, and organophosphorus pesticides in Chinese herbal medicines. The analytical method was based on an efficient extraction procedure and further cleanup steps by solid-phase extraction columns, yielding recovery rates in the range of 70.0–120.0 % for the majority of pesticides, except for hexachlorobenze, diazinon, β-HCH, δ-HCH, and omethoate, with precision values expressed as relative standard deviation of 0.1–14.7 %. The limits of detection of the established GC/MS/MS method for all investigated pesticides ranged from 0.01 to 3.6 μg kg−1 and limits of quantification from 0.03 to 11.88 μg kg−1. With this validated method, multi-residual pesticides of 132 Chinese herbal medicine samples were analyzed. The monitoring results indicated that pesticide residue was found in 74 samples. In total, 51 pesticides were found with detection rate ranging from 0.76 to 18.94 %. An 82.3 % of positive pesticides were found in less than 6 % of samples. Hexachlorobenzene was found in 25 samples, quintozene in 15 samples, and acephate and simazine in 13 samples. Concentrations of pesticide residue from monitoring data obtained ranged from 0.5 to 203.5 μg kg−1. The simple and rapid method can be used as routine analysis method in multi-residual pesticide monitoring of Chinese herbal medicines.
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Acknowledgments
This paper was supported by the National S&T Major Special Project on Major New Drug Innovation, item number 2009ZX09502-027. This work is financially supported by the National Science and Technology Major Special Project on Major New Drug Innovation (no. 2009ZX09502-027) sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China only.
Conflict of Interest
No conflict of interest exists between our institute (Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Science and Peking Union Medical College) and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China. All authors have read and approved this version of the article. All authors have agreed to the submission. No conflict of interest exists in the submission of this manuscript. Hefang Tong declares that she has no conflict of interest. Yanling Tong declares that she has no conflict of interest. Jian Xue declares that she has no conflict of interest. Dongjing Liu declares that she has no conflict of interest. Xiaobo Wu declares that he has no conflict of interest. This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects.
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Hefang Tong and Yanling Tong contributed equally to this work.
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Tong, H., Tong, Y., Xue, J. et al. Multi-residual Pesticide Monitoring in Commercial Chinese Herbal Medicines by Gas Chromatography–Triple Quadrupole Tandem Mass Spectrometry. Food Anal. Methods 7, 135–145 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12161-013-9609-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12161-013-9609-5