Development of a UPLC-MS/MS-based method for simultaneous determination of advanced glycation end products and heterocyclic amines in stewed meat products

A novel analytical strategy was proposed to simultaneously quantify two advanced glycation end products (AGEs) including Nε-(Carboxymethyl)lysine (CML), Nε-(Carboxyethyl)lysine (CEL) and eight heterocyclic amines (HAs) including IQ, MeIQ, MeIQx, 4,8-DiMeIQx, 7,8-DiMeIQx, PhIP, Harman, and Norharman. The procedure was based on a two-step extraction, solid phase extraction (SPE) purification followed by ultra performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. The established method showed a good linearity (R2 ≥ 0.9950), rapid processing time (8 min per sample), satisfactory recoveries (matrix spiked recoveries range from 72.2% to 119.6%) and precision (intra-day and inter-day RSDs were <19.3%). The limit of quantification (LOQ) and limit of detection (LOD) resulted to be between 0.05–15 ng/g and 0.2–50 ng/g, respectively. The validated technique was further applied to determine HAs and AGEs in eight stewed meat product samples consumed in Shanghai, with the amount of HAs and AGEs ranging from 2.851 to 18.289 ng/g and 118.158–543.493 ng/g, respectively.