Determination of melamine residue in eel using high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry

The method for the determination of melamine residue in eel using high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry(LC-MS/MS) was developed.Acetonitril and 1% trichloracetic acid solution were used to precipitate proteins and to dissociate the target analyte from the sample matrix.Then it was degrased and depurated with Oasis MCX solid phase extraction cartridge.A SCX-C18 mixture filled RP-HPLC column was used for separation,and the mass spectrometer was operated in the positive ion mode using select reaction monitoring.The limit of detection was 20 μg/kg for LC-MS/MS.The correlation coefficient of linear calibration curve was over 0.99 within the melamine concentration range 20~500 μg/kg.The average recovery for melamine ranged between 84.82% and 91.42%.