Simultaneous determination of ten biogenic amines in a thymopolypeptides injection using ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization tandem quadrupole mass spectrometry

A selective and sensitive ultra-performance liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC–MS) method was developed for the simultaneous determination of ten biogenic amines (tryptamine, 2-phenylethylamine, putrescine, cadaverine, histamine, tyramine, spermidine, adrenaline, dopamine and spermine) in a thymopolypeptides injection from the Chinese market for the first time. Biogenic amines (BAs) were pre-column derivatised by dansyl chloride after direct sample dilution. Dansylated amines were separated on an ACQUITY UPLC BEH Shield RP18 column (2.1 mm × 150 mm I.D., 1.7 μm) using a gradient elution. Quantification was done by monitoring fragment ions of each derivative under the MS mode of multiple reaction monitoring (MRM). A satisfactory result of method validation was obtained. The linearity ranged from 0.32 to 1182.9 μg/L and the correlation coefficients ( r ) for all amines were above 0.99. The LOD ranged from 0.08 μg/L for 2-phenylethylamine and tyramine to 8.00 μg/L for adrenaline; the LOQ ranged from 0.32 μg/L for 2-phenylethylamine to 12.12 μg/L for dopamine. The recovery ranged from 75.8 to 110.3% after spiking standard solutions of BAs to a sample at three levels. The intra and inter-day precision RSD were 0.78–8.85% and 1.39–9.93% respectively. Eighty-four injections were analyzed by this method. Nine biogenic amines were found in them except adrenaline. Moreover, the relationship between the result of test for depressor substances and the content of BAs was statistically analyzed.