High-performance liquid chromatographic method for the determination of spectinomycin in turkey plasma

A selective high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method with ultraviolet-visible (UV-VIS) detection was developed to measure therapeutic concentrations of spectinomycin in turkey plasma. Treatment of plasma samples with 3% trifluoroacetic acid in acetonitrile facilitated spectinomycin extraction and protein precipitation. After centrifugation, the stable derivatization reagent, 2,4-dinitrophenyl-hydrazine, was added to an aliquot of the supernatant, and the mixture was incubated for 30 min at 70 degrees C. Excess reagent was quenched with acetone and additional heating. The resulting derivative, a proposed spectinomycin-hydrazone, was separated from other compounds by reversed-phase HPLC during a short gradient run. The absorbance of the effluent was monitored spectrophotometrically with the UV-VIS detector set at 205 nm. The detector response was linear through the range of interest, 2-100 micrograms/ml.