Izcara, SergioCasado, NataliaMorante-Zarcero, SoniaPérez-Quintanilla, DamiánSierra, Isabel2022-06-082022-06-082022-06Sergio Izcara, Natalia Casado, Sonia Morante-Zarcero, Damián Pérez-Quintanilla, Isabel Sierra, Miniaturized and modified QuEChERS method with mesostructured silica as clean-up sorbent for pyrrolizidine alkaloids determination in aromatic herbs, Food Chemistry, Volume 380, 2022, 132189, ISSN 0308-8146, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2022.1321890308-8146http://hdl.handle.net/10115/19469This work proposes the miniaturization and modification of the QuEChERS strategy using different large pore mesostructured silicas, non-modified and modified with amino groups (NH2), as dispersive clean-up sorbents for multi-component extraction of 21 pyrrolizidine alkaloids from different aromatic herbs, combined with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry analysis. The procedure was miniaturized by reducing the amounts of sample (0.2 g), solvents (2 mL), clean-up sorbents (25 mg sorbent + 150 mg MgSO4) and partitioning salts (0.65 g) employed. Best results were achieved using mesostructured silicas (LP-MS-NH2) than conventional PSA. The method was validated (overall recoveries 73–105%) and applied to the analysis of 17 samples. All the samples were contaminated with PAs (average concentration 262 µg/Kg). Thyme and basil samples were the most contaminated, whereas rosemary was the least. Lasiocarpine, senecivernine N-oxide and europine N-oxide were the main PAs that contributed to their contamination.engAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacionalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Pyrrolizidine alkaloidsAromatic herbsMesostructured silicasµ-QuEChERSUHPLC-MS/MSFood safetyinfo:eu-repo/semantics/article10.1016/j.foodchem.2022.132189info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess