Elimination of ceftiofur hydrochloride residue in postpartum cows’milk after intramammary infusing at dry-off

KANG Ji-jun, LlU Yi-ming, ZHAO Lei-lei, XU Fei, CHEN Xiao-jie, YAN Xing, Ll Xiu-bo

Feed Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, P.R.China

1. lntroduction

Cow mastitis is a kind of inflammation in the parenchyma and stroma of mammaries caused by the infection ofEscherichia coli,Streptococcus,Staphylococcus, and other species of bacteria.Mastitis decreases milk yield and quality, leads to large quantities of abanoned milk and increases treatment cost, which cause huge economic losses to farmers. Due to the changes in cows’ mammary physiology, cows are susceptible to bacterial infection during their dry-off period,especially in the first week of dry-off and before calving. Over 24% of healthy udders were infected byStaphylococcus aureusandStreptococcusduring dry-off, which increased the incidence of subclinical and clinical mastitis in the next early lactation period (O’Rourke 2005; Pinedoet al. 2012;Golderet al. 2016). Prevention and treatment with antibiotic intramammary infusion to all quarters of the cows at dry-off is an effective way to control mastitis and is recommended by the National Mastitis Council (NMC), in this period, since lacking the interference of milk, intramammary infusion could be easily administrated and result in better efficiency, which improved milk yield in the next production cycle (Pinedoet al. 2012).

Ceftiofur, a third generation cephalosporin that is only used for veterinary applications, has high activities against Gram-positive and -negative bacteriain vitro. Ceftiofur was approved by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)to cure respiratory diseases in pigs, cattle, and chickens(FDA 1992). Ceftiofur has been used extensively to treat mastitis in dairy cows and its efficacy of this treatment has been confirmed (Oliveret al. 2004; Schukkenet al. 2011;Cristinaet al. 2016). Fenget al. (2014) reported that ceftiofur can prevent and treat mastitis in dry cows. Seventy-two cows with recessive mastitis were administrated different antibiotic intramammary infusions during the dry-off period,and ceftiofur sodium showed the highest cure rate of 75.68%, while sulfadiazine sodium, gentamycin, enrofloxin,lincomycin, and benzathine cloxacillin cured less than 60%of animals (Li 2014). A noninferiority analysis found that ceftiofur hydrochloride had the same efficacy as penicillin/dihydrostreptomycin and cephapirin benzathine for mastitis treatment during the dry-off period (Arrudaet al. 2013).Environmental bacterial infections in udders increased the incidence of clinical mastitis in the first month after calving.Compared with penicillin dihydrostreptomycin, dry-off therapy with ceftiofur hydrochloride can significantly decrease clinical and subclinical mastitis during subsequent early lactation(Pinedoet al. 2012). However, no reports have focused on the ceftiofur residues in milk of postpartum cows which received ceftiofur at dry-off.

Our lab developed an intramammary infusion of ceftiofur hydrochloride aiming at preventing and curing mastitis in dry cows. Previous tests have proven that this infusion has good stability, safety, and efficacy (Wuet al. 2016). The purpose of the present study was to investigate ceftiofur depletion in milk after intramammary administration. A reliable UPLC-MS/MS method was established and validated. The results could provide guidance for the clinical applications of ceftiofur hydrochloride intramammary infusion in cows during dry-off.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Materials and reagents

Ceftiofur hydrochloride intramammary infusion (containing 500 mg ceftiofur in 10 mL; batch number: 20110905) was developed in our lab and manufactured by Huaqinyuan Animal Health Products Corp. Ltd. (Beijing, China). Ceftiofur hydrochloride reference standard (87.3%) was purchased from the China Institute of Veterinary Drug Control (Beijing,China). Methanol and acetonitrile (HPLC grade) were obtained from Thermo Fisher Scientific (Fair Lawn, NJ,USA). Dithioerytritol (DTE) and iodoacetamide were purchased from Sigma Aldrich Co. Ltd. (Poole, Dorset, UK).Distilled-deionized water was purified using an Astacus Ultra Pure Water System (MembraPure GmbH, Berlin, Germany).Before the UPLC analysis, all solutions were filtered with a 0.22-μm polypropylene membrane filter (Pall Corporation,NY, USA). Other chemicals and reagents used in this study(analytical grade) were obtained from Beijing Chemical Reagent Co., Ltd. (Beijing, China).

2.2. Preparation of solutions

The ceftiofur stock solution at 1 000 μg mL–1was prepared by dissolving accurately weighted standard substance in water; this solution can be kept for 1 month at 4°C. Other solutions were prepared freshly. The working standard solution was made by diluting the stock solution with water.Formic acid at 0.1% and 0.1 mol mL–1ammonium acetate buffer were prepared by dissolving the proper quantity of reagent in water. DTE extracting solution at 0.1 mol mL–1and 10% iodoacetamide solution were prepared with 0.1 mol mL–1ammonium acetate buffer.

2.3. LC-MS/MS conditions

A Waters ACQUITY Ultra-high Performance Liquid Chromatography (UPLC) System (Waters Corporation,Milford, USA), which consisted of a binary solvent manager,a temperature control sampling manager and a column compartment, was used for analysis. The auto sampler temperature was kept at 10°C. The temperature of the Waters ACQUITY column UPLC BEH C18 (50 mm×2.1 mm,1.7 μm) was 40°C. The gradient conditions of mobile phases(solution A: acetonitrile; solution B, 0.1% formic acid in water)were as follows: 0–0.2 min, 95% B; 0.2–3.2 min, 80% B; and 3.2–5 min, 95% B. The injection volume was 1 μL and the flow rate of mobile phases was 0.35 mL min–1.

A Xevo TQ-S triple quadrupole mass spectrometer(Waters Corporation, Milford, USA) equipped with an electrospray ionization (ESI) source in positive ionization mode (ESI+) was used under the follow parameters:extractor voltage, 30 V; capillary voltage, 2.0 kV; source temperature, 150°C; RF lens, 0.5 V; desolvation gas (N2)flow rate, 150 L h–1; cone gas (N2) flow rate, 20 L h–1; and desolvation temperature, 500°C. The multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) conditions, precursor ion, daughter ions,cone voltage, and collision energy are listed in Table 1.Mass Lynx V4.1 and Target Lynx V4.1 software (Waters Corporation) were used for data collection, processing, and reporting. The most abundant daughter ion ofm/z241.0 was used as quantitative ion, and the qualitative ion wasm/z210.2.

2.4. Treatment and milk sampling

A total of 12 healthy Holstein cows from the Beijing Sanyuan Luhe cow breeding center were involved in this study before their dry-off. No animal received antibiotics within 15 days prior to its inclusion. The management and feeding of animals were conducted according to routine farming procedures. On the first day of dry-off, every quarter of every cow was administered one 10 mL package of ceftiofur hydrochloride intramammary infusion (corresponding to 500 mg ceftiofur) after the last milking, gently massaged teats to promote drug distribution. The cows begin parturition after the dry-off duration ((53.5±1.6) d). At 12,24, 36, 48, 60 and 72 h after calving, 10 mL of milk was collected from each quarter of one cow and mixed. The milk mixture was then placed in a polypropylene tube and kept at –40°C pending analysis.

2.5. Extraction, cleanup, and derivatization

A total of 6 mL acetonitrile was added into a 15-mL polypropylene centrifuge tube containing 1 mL milk sample.The mixture was vortexed for 30 s and centrifuged at 10 000 r min–1for 10 min at 4°C. The supernatant liquid was transferred into a glass tube and concentrated to approximately 1 mL at 40°C under nitrogen gas. Afterwards,5 mL of DTE was added, and the glass tube was kept in a water bath at 50°C. After 30 min, 2 mL of iodoacetamide solution was added into the tube for derivatization. The mixture was shaken for 30 s and kept in a dark place for 30 min, followed by loading onto a solid phase extraction(SPE) cartridge (HLB, 3cc/60 mg) that had been conditioned with 3 mL methanol and 3 mL water. The solution percolated through the SPE cartridge under gravity. The cartridge was then rinsed with 3 mL water and dried off under vacuum.The analyte was eluted from the SPE cartridge with 3 mL acetonitrile, and the elution was collected into a 10-mL glass tube and dried under nitrogen gas at 40°C. The residues were constituted using a mixture of 0.1% formic acid and acetonitrile (5:95, v/v), then the reconstitution was filtered using a 0.22-μm disposable syringe filter and analyzed using UPLC-MS/MS.

2.6. Method validation

Selectivity was analyzed by checking if interfering peaks appeared at the retention time of the analyte in blank milk.Matrix effects were investigated by comparing the peak areas of analytes present in the milk to the solvent. To construct the calibration curve, derivatized DCA from the 50 μg L–1standard working solution was diluted to different levels (0.1, 0.5, 1, 5, 10, 25, and 50 μg kg–1) and subjected to UPLC-MS/MS. The standard calibration curve was generated using the DCA peak areavs. the standard ceftiofur concentration. The LOD and LOQ scores were defined as the minimum concentration of DCA that was necessary for a signal-to-noise ratio of ≥3 and ≥10, respectively. To assess the intra-day and inter-day precision and accuracy,5 replicates of spiked blank samples with ceftiofur at 3 concentration levels (0.5, 5, and 50 μg kg–1) were analyzed on a single day and on 5 different days. The results were expressed by relative standard deviation (RSD). Recovery was calculated using the above samples at 3 concentration levels. The stability of an analyte in milk was evaluated by analyzing 2 blank matrix samples spiked with ceftiofur at 0.5 and 5 μg kg–1with 6 replicates. Three types of stability were measured: short-term stability (environmental conditions,4 h), long-term stability (30 days at –40°C), and freeze thaw stability (3 cycles).

3. Results

3.1. Method validation

The UPLC-MS/MS method of detecting ceftiofur hydrochloride residue in cows’ milk proved to be selective,since there were no significant chromatographic signals in the blank samples, that is, the observed peaks showed a signal ≤20% compared to the signal obtained in the LOQ for the analyte retention time. The matrix effect can’t be ignored because the peak area rations of analyte present in milkto in solvent were 82.1–92.9%, while the ignorable range was 85–115%. Therefore, blank milk extracting solution was used as a diluted solvent for the calibration curve to avoid the impact of endogenous matrix effects. The method used a linear range from 0.1 to 50 μg kg–1. The regression equation of the calibration curve was:y=832.15x–26.886,with a correlation coefficient of 0.9995. The LOD and LOQ for DCA in milk were 0.05 and 0.1 μg kg–1, respectively.The recoveries were between 86.51–105.42%; the intraday coefficients of variation (CV) were within the range of 2.95–9.82%; and the inter-day CV was within the range of 6.41–7.43%. Validation details of every concentration are listed in Table 2. The analyte remained stable in milk for 4 h under exposure to environmental conditions, for 30 days at–40°C, and after 3 freeze-thaw cycles, because the obtained CV were ≤10, as shown in Table 3. The chromatograms of blank milk and milk samples fortified at the concentrations of 0.1, 0.5, 5, and 50 μg kg–1are shown in Fig. 1.

Table 1 Monitoring conditions for the mass spectrometer

3.2. Residues in milk

Ceftiofur hydrochloride intramammary infusion was administrated before dry-off while after the last milking.After calving, no DCA residue was found in milk of 12 cows.At all time points, DCA residues were below 0.1 μg kg–1(LOQ). The withdrawal period of ceftiofur hydrochloride intramammary infusion was 0 day. A typical chromatogram of collected samples is shown in Fig. 2.

4. Discussion

4.1. UPLC-MS/MS optimization

The parent ionm/z486.9 of DCA was confirmed by scanning a 10 μg mL–1DCA standard working solution in full scan mode; the molecule obtained high [M+H]+abundance under the ESI+ ionization mode. After the optimization of MS/MS parameters of the parent ion, 3 main fragment ions ofm/z241.0,m/z210.2, andm/z166.9 were obtained using the secondary scanning mode. Them/z241.0 fragment ion with the largest abundance was selected as the quantitative ion, andm/z210.2 with the second highest abundance was chosen as the qualitative ion. Matthiaset al. (2003) usedm/z486.8 as the parent ion,m/z240.8 as the quantitative ion andm/z210.0 as the qualitative ion in their experiment.Makeswaranet al. (2005) selectedm/z486.8 as the parent ion,m/z240.9 as the quantitative ion, andm/z166.5 as the qualitative ion. These two tests used identical parent ions and quantitative ions with our test, but differed in the choice of qualitative ions, which may be related to the different collision energies and instrument states.

4.2. Extraction optimization

Based on the extraction procedure of Makeswaranet al.(2005), which involved centrifuging the mixture of 6 mL acetonitrile, 2 mL water, and 2 mL milk, then concentrating the supernatant using nitrogen gas, we optimized centrifugation of the mixture of 3 mL acetonitrile and 1 mL milk. This method saved the acetonitrile quantity and concentration time due to the absence of water. DCA is a weakly basic compound that contains amide bonds,according to this characteristic, we compared the cleanup results of 4 kinds of SPE column: Waters Oasis MCX,Waters Oasis HLB, Agilent Technologies Mega BE-C18,and Agilent Technologies SampliQ SCX. HLB and BEC18 are hydrophilic lipophilic balance reversed-phase adsorbent for acidic, basic, and neutral compounds, andHLB is tolerant of dryness. MCX and SCX are hybrid strong cation exchange inversion adsorbent for basic compounds.The results showed that HLB retained 10% more DCA than BE-C18, compared to elution by one SPE column (BE-C18 or HLB). Cleanup with two SPE columns (BE-C18+SCX or HLB+MCX) reduced 10–20% of DCA before analysis, while keeping the same quantities of impurities with one column.Consequently, one Waters Oasis HLB column was chosen for this cleanup procedure.

Table 2 Recoveries of ceftiofur spiked in control milk

Table 3 Stability of ceftiofur spiked in milk

4.3. Derivatization optimization

European medicines agency (EMEA 1999) reported that in dairy cows given 2.2 mg14C-ceftiofur kg–1based on their bodyweight per day on 5 consecutive days by intramuscular injections, approximately 65% of the residues in milk were covalently bound to milk protein, mostly as desfuroylceftiofur(DFC). DFC contains an undamaged beta-lactam ring, is a main metabolite of ceftiofur, and has similar antibacterial activity as ceftiofur. DFC rarely exists at the free state or prototype in plasma, urine, or tissue. It is not only converted into disulfide with cysteine and glutathione through its mercapto group on 3-position substituents, but also forms into a DFC-protein complex with plasma or tissue protein(Premet al. 1989; Williamet al. 1996; Makeswaranet al.2005; Jacobsonet al. 2006). In this study, we adopted DTE cleavage for the disulfide and/or the thioester bonds that existed between various unspecified metabolites of ceftiofur and their sulfur-containing moiety to release DFC. We then derivatized DFC with iodoacetamide into DCA, which was more stable and easier to analyze. This method imitates the metabolism of ceftiofur in animals and ensures reliable results, was first proposed in 1995 and was used to detect ceftiofur residue in swine tissues (Beconi-Barkeret al.1995).Ceftiofur was derivatized into DFC cysteine disulfide (DCCD)in another study to analyze the residues in chicken kidneys;this transformation was more appropriate for detection of multiresidues (Fenget al. 2012). In this study, acetonitrile was used to precipitate protein before mixing milk with DTE solution, in order to avoid the possibility of SPE blockage;this is in contrast to directly mixing the milk with DTE solution(Zhanget al. 2011). Two reported derivatization methods differ in the timing of adding iodoacetamide to DFC: The first method involves adding iodoacetamide into the DFC on the solid phase extraction (SPE) column (Zhanget al.2011), while the second method involves immediately adding iodoacetamide into DFC once upon its generation,vortexing until the mixture was homogeneous, holding at room temperature for 30 min, and then clean up on a SPE column (Matthiaset al. 2003). We used the latter method since it resulted in a better derivatization efficacy.

Fig. 1 Typical chromatograms of UPLC method validation. A,blank milk sample. B–E, milk sample spiked with a ceftiofur concentration of 0.1 μg kg–1 (LOQ), 0.5, 5 and 50 μg kg–1,respectively.

Fig. 2 The chromatogram of milk collected 12 h after calving for No. 1 cow.

4.4. Residues in milk

In this study, 500 mg ceftiofur (10 mL intramammary infusion of ceftiofur) were administrated to each quarter of each dry cow at the beginning of dry-off, and milk samples were collected after parturition. The average dry-off duration was 50–60 days. No DCA was found from 12 to 72 h post calving.The residues of DCA in all milk samples were below LOQ(0.1 μg kg–1) and the maximum residue limit (MRL 100 μg kg–1), similar to the data found by EMEA (2002). According to EMEA, after intramammary infusing 250 or 500 mg per quarter of ceftiofur hydrochloride to pregnant dairy cows at dry-off, milk collected between 0–96 h after parturition contained ceftiofur plus desfuroylceftiofur related residue concentrations were less than 10 μg kg–1(LOQ).

5. Conclusion

In this study, a preprocessing method and UPLC-MS/MS condition were established and validated for detecting the residues of ceftiofur hydrochloride in cows’ milk. The LOD and LOQ were 0.05 and 0.1 μg kg–1, respectively, and the recovery of ceftiofur was between 82.52 and 105.86%.This method was used to study the elimination of ceftiofur hydrochloride after intramammary infusing in cows at dryoff. Within 72 h post calving, the DCA concentration in all milk samples was less than MRL. The withdrawal period of ceftiofur hydrochloride intramammary infusion in dry cows is 0 day.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Beijing Diary Industry Innovation Team, China and the Special Fund of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences Innovation Project (CAASFRI-06).

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