An ion chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (IC-MS/MS) method for glyphosate and amino methyl phosphoric acid in serum of occupational workers

Abstract A non-suppressed ion chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (IC-MS/MS) has been established to measure glyphosate (GLY) and amino methyl phosphoric acid (AMPA) in serum of the occupational workers. After the inhibition of metal-chelating with EDTA aqueous solution and protein precipitation with acetonitrile, the samples were purified with a modified liquid–liquid extraction method and separated on an ion chromatographic column (250 mm × 2.1 mm) by using a gradient program of 0.4 mol/L methylamine aqueous solution and acetonitrile as mobile phase. Multiple reactions monitoring (MRM) model was used to obtain the sensitivity of the method, and the isotopically labelled internal standards were applied in the calibration process. Good linearities and recoveries were obtained in the validation process. The recovery experiment provided satisfied results with a range of 91%~101% for GLY and 92%~99% for AMPA in human serum and RSD values for both two analytes were