Determination of tetracyclines residues in honey using high-performance liquid chromatography with potassium permanganate-sodium sulfite-beta-cyclodextrin chemiluminescence detection.

A novel method was developed for the simultaneous determination of tetracycline antibiotic (TCA) residues such as oxytetracycline (OTC), tetracycline (TC), and metacycline (MTC) by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with chemiluminescence (CL) detection. The procedure was based on the chemiluminescent enhancement by TCAs of the potassium permanganate-sodium sulfite-beta-cyclodextrin system in a phosphoric acid medium. The separation was carried out with an isocratic elution using a mixture of acetonitrile and 0.001 M phosphoric acid. For the three TCAs, the detection limits at a signal-to-noise of 3 ranged from 0.9 to 5.0 ng/ml. The relative standard deviations for the determination of TCAs ranged from 3.1 to 7.4% within a day (n=11) and ranged from 2.2 to 8.6% in 3 days (n=9), respectively. The method was successfully applied to the determination of TCA residues in honey samples. The possible mechanism of the CL reaction was also discussed.