Determination of Chlorotetracycline and Doxycycline in Medicated Feedingstuffs by Liquid Chromatography

High performance liquid chromatography method with diode array detection (HPLC-DAD) was developed and optimised for the determination of tetracyclines (TCs) in medicated feedingstuffs. The extraction of the analyte from feedingstuffs was performed with Na₂EDTA-McIlvaine buffer (pH 2.5 and pH 4). The extracts were cleaned up by solid phase extraction using octadecyl cartridges (C18). The samples were dried up and redissolved in the mixture of oxalic acid and methanol. Separation was performed on reserved phase column (Phenomenex C18, 250 x 4.6 mm, 5 μm) by multistep gradient elution, which provided better chromatographic separation. The analysis was performed at a wavelength of 390 nm. Validation study of the method revealed that all obtained calibration curves showed good linearity R= 0.9985 for doxycycline (DC) and R= 0.9981 for chlorotetracycline (CTC) over the range of 25-2,000 mg/kg. The analytical procedure was successfully adapted for quantitative determination of DC and CTC in medicated feedingstuff samples. Validation included determination of specificity, linearity, and repeatability. Mean recovery for spiked samples was 93.1% for CTC and 93.2% for DC. The results of validation of the analytical procedure proved that presented method is efficient, precise and useful for quantification of DC and CTC in medicated feedingstuffs.