Fast Separation and Determination of Four Tobacco-Specific Nitrosamines in Cigarette Smoke Using UPLC-MS/MS

摘要

An ultra high pressure liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) method for fast separation and determination of the four major tobacco-specific nitrosamines in mainstream cigarette smoke has been developed. Cigarette smoke particulate matter was extracted with 100 mM ammonium acetate after addition of isotopically labeled internal standards, further purified by solid-phase extraction using PCX column. Subsequently, the target analysis was performed by UPLC-MS/MS. The limit of quantification (S/N > 10) for the four tobacco-specific nitrosamines were 0.23, 0.29, 0.25 and 0.35 ng/mL respectively, with a linear calibration range spanning 0.8-100 ng/mL. This method was validated by comparing the quantitative results for tobacco-specific nitrosamines with the conventional standard method.