Determination and depletion of dehydroacetic acid residue in chicken tissues

A high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was developed to determine dehydroacetic acid (DHA) residues in chicken muscle, liver and kidney. DHA was extracted using acetonitrile, and clean-up performed using a strong anion exchange (PAX) SPE column. The cleaned-up samples were separated by HPLC with a C18 column and determined at 290 nm. Extraction recoveries of DHA from samples fortified at 0.5-5 mg/kg levels ranged from 88.2% to 93.9% in muscle, 83.8% to 86.6% in liver and 83.8% to 89.8% in kidney, with coefficients of variation <6.44%. The limit of detection was 0.05 mg/kg and limit of quantification was 0.2 mg/kg. DHA was not detectable in muscle at 13-15 days after final administration of DHA, at 11 days in kidney and 17 days in liver. The method described herein is suitable for routine quantitative analyses of DHA in animal tissues and can be easily applied to the analysis of other matrices such as milk, serum and tissue samples from other animals.