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Screening, characterization, and determination of suspected additives bimatoprost and latanoprost in cosmetics using NMR and LC–MS methods

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Abstract

Recently, many new types of cosmetic illegal additives have been screened in the market. Most of the new additives were new drugs or analogues with very similar structures to other prohibited additives, which were difficult to be identified by liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) only. Therefore, a new strategy is proposed, which is chromatographic separation combined with nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) structural identification. The suspected samples were screened by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography tandem high-resolution mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q-TOF–MS), followed by purification and extraction through silica-gel column chromatography and preparative high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Finally, the extracts were identified unambiguously by NMR as bimatoprost and latanoprost, which were identified to be new cosmetic illegal additives in eyelash serums in China. Meanwhile, bimatoprost and latanoprost were quantified by high-performance liquid chromatography tandem triple quadrupole mass spectrum (HPLC-QQQ-MS/MS). The quantitative method demonstrated good linearity in the range of approximately 0.25–50 ng/mL (R2 > 0.9992), with limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) values of 0.01 and 0.03 mg/kg, respectively. The accuracy, precision, and reproducibility were confirmed to be acceptable.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are highly grateful to National Institutes for Food and Drug Control for all-around support and for arranging research facilities.

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  1. Yong Lu and Yu He contributed equally to this paper.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institutes for Food and Drug Control, Bei**g, 100050, China

    Yong Lu, Yu He, **nran Wang, Haiyan Wang, Qianqian Qiu, Bao** Wu & **anfu Wu

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  1. Yong Lu
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Contributions

Yong Lu: conceptualization; methodology; investigation; writing—original draft. Yu He: methodology; investigation; formal analysis; writing—original draft. **nran Wang: methodology, investigation. Haiyan Wang: conceptualization, validation. Qianqian Qiu: formal analysis and investigation, validation. Bao** Wu: formal analysis and investigation, validation. **anfu Wu: conceptualization; project administration; writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to **anfu Wu.

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Lu, Y., He, Y., Wang, X. et al. Screening, characterization, and determination of suspected additives bimatoprost and latanoprost in cosmetics using NMR and LC–MS methods. Anal Bioanal Chem 415, 3549–3558 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-023-04744-1

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