Determination of nucleosides and nucleotides in baby foods by hydrophilic interaction chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry in the presence of hydrophilic ion-pairing reagents

•Novel application of IP-HILIC-MS/MS in food analysis.•Simultaneous determination of 20 nucleosides and nucleotides in baby foods.•Simple and effective sample treatment based on centrifugal ultrafiltration.•Validation of the proposed method according to the 2002/657/EC decision.•Application to sixteen commercial dairy and non-dairy baby foods. In this work we propose a rapid and efficient method for the joint determination of nucleosides and nucleotides in dairy and non-dairy baby foods based on hydrophilic interaction chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry in the presence of diethylammonium (DEA) as a hydrophilic ion-pairing reagent (IP-HILIC-MS/MS). Sample treatment of the baby food included dilution with water and centrifugal ultrafiltration (CUF) with an additional washing step that notably improved the global performance of the process. Later dilution of the extract with acetonitrile allowed adequate separation in the HILIC system. With the proposed treatment, we obtained extraction recoveries higher than 80% and, additionally, no matrix effects were observed. The CUF-IP-HILIC-MS/MS method was validated according to the 2002/657/EC decision and was used for the quantification of nucleotides and nucleosides in sixteen samples of commercial baby foods.