Determination of pesticides in soy-based infant formula using liquid chromatography with electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry.

A sensitive method using liquid chromatography with electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC/ESI-MS/MS) was developed and validated to quantify and confirm 13 pesticides, including aldicarb sulfoxide, aldicarb sulfone, oxamyl, methomyl, formetanate, 3-hydroxycarbofuran, carbendazim, thiabendazole, aldicarb, propoxur, carbofuran, carbaryl, and methiocarb, in soy-based infant formula. Data acquisition under MS/MS was achieved by applying multiple reaction monitoring of 2 fragment ion transitions to provide a high degree of sensitivity and selectivity for both quantitation and confirmation. Different approaches to constructing calibration curves were compared and discussed to address issues of the extraction efficiency or recovery, and matrix effects. Matrix-matched standard calibration curves with the use of isoprocarb as an internal standard were finally used to achieve the best accuracy of the method. Under most circumstances, recoveries of 13 pesticides, spiked at 5.0, 25.0, and 45.0 microg/kg, were close to 100%. The method detection limits (signal-to-noise ratio > or =3:1; microg/kg) of 13 pesticides were 0.2 for thiabendazole and methiocarb, 0.6 for aldicarb, and 0.1 for the others.