Simultaneous Determination of Succinylcholine and Its Metabolite in Animal-derived Foods by Solid-phase Extraction Combined with Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry.

RATIONALE Succinylcholine has been increasingly used in theft of animals. Due to the presence of residual levels of succinylcholine in poisoned animals, it is harmful for people to eat foods derived from these animals. Therefore, it is urgent that a method should be established for the determination of succinylcholine and its metabolite in animal-derived foods. METHODS A fast, highly sensitive method, combining solid-phase extraction (SPE) with ultra-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC/ESI-MS/MS), was developed for the determination of succinylcholine and its metabolites in animal-derived foods. The sample is initially extracted with heptafluorobutyric acid and then further cleaned up with an SPE cartridge. Succinylcholine and its metabolites are separated using acetonitrile: 0.1% formic acid in 5 mmol L-1 ammonium acetate as the mobile phase. Quantitative results are based on positive ion ESI multiple reaction monitoring mode. RESULTS The results show good linearity over a wide range with correlation coefficients of determination of more than 0.998. The limits of detection of succinylcholine and succinylmonocholine are both 0.2 μg kg-1 . The intra- and inter-day accuracies of the method were in the range 91.4%-104.6% and the intra- and inter-day precisions were in the range 2.5%-6.6%,. CONCLUSIONS This method can be used for the determination of succinylcholine as an illicit drug in animal-derived foods. It was successfully applied to identification and quantification of succinylcholine and succinylmonocholine in animal-derived foods collected from a local farmers market in Jilin province of China.