Accurate Quantitation of Carotenoids and Fat-Soluble Vitamins in Food and Supplements by LC-MS/MS

Accurate quantitative measurements for fat-soluble vitamins are required to ensure product quality and regulatory compliance. An LC-MS/MS method was developed for the simultaneous determination of fat-soluble vitamins and carotenoids using an Agilent 1290 Infinity II LC coupled to an Agilent 6470 triple quadrupole LC/MS system in positive ionization mode.

The fat-soluble vitamins include Vitamin A, Vitamin D (D2 and D3), Vitamin E and Vitamin K (K1, K2) and selected carotenoids including β-carotene and lutein. Approaches for improving the accuracy of mass spectrometry quantitation results were performed. The method was applied to quantify the fat-soluble vitamins in highly complex infant formula and multivitamin tablet matrices. This method can be utilized for quality control and establishment of the nutrition labels for fat-soluble vitamin-containing food products.

Presenter: Hui Zhao (Pre-Sales Application Engineer, Agilent Technologies, Inc.)

Hui has 13 years of industry experience developing and validating analytical methods for food/feed nutrition, food safety, dietary supplements and botanicals testing, using a variety of analytical techniques including LC-TQ, LC-QTOF, LC-DAD and GC-MS and a breadth of sample preparation methodologies. She has worked as a Research Scientist at Monsanto, EPL-Bioanalytical Services, Tate & Lyle, Inc. and Lead Staff Scientist at Covance Food Solutions. She holds a Master of Science degree in Analytical Chemistry from Lanzhou University in China and a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Missouri.

Prior to becoming a Pre-Sales AE, Hui worked as an LCMS application scientist in Agilent’s global market development group where her primary focus was food and environmental market development.