Analysis of Acrylamide in Mainstream Cigarette Smoke and Effects of Total Nitrogen and Reducing Sugars on Acrylamide Content

Acrylamide has been found in many foods. Acrylamide in foodstuffs were analyzed by a GC/MS after bromination of acrylamide or by a LC/MS for underivatized acylamide. Time consuming and laborious clean up procedures is applied for the purification of the extract, in these methods. In this study, a simple and fast method without clean up step for the analysis of acrylamide in mainstream cigarette smoke was developed by using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) and the effects of tobacco leaf constituents on acrylamide content was observed. The analysis of acrylamide in mainstream cigarette smoke started to collect TPM (total particulate matter) from smoking and to extract by 0.1 % acetic acid solution and then to detect by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry using electrospray in the positive mode. The recovery of acrylamide in 2R4F reference cigarette was 98 % and the reproducibility was 2.5 % and the limit of detection was 1.6 ng/mL. Reducing sugars and amino acids are considered to be main precursors of acrylamide in foodstuffs. Cut tobacco contain substantial amounts of reducing sugars and amino acid which may be explained the occurrence of acrylamide in mainstream cigarette smoke. The effects of reducing sugars and total nitrogen studied in an experiment with a various tobacco types. This result indicated that reducing sugars are not limiting factor for acrylamide formation, but the level of acrylamide in cigarette smoke was significantly correlated with the total nitrogen contents.