Assay of tyrosol and hydroxytyrosol in olive oil by tandem mass spectrometry and isotope dilution method

Hydroxytyrosol and tyrosol, the strong antioxidant present in large amount in virgin olive oil have been assayed by LC–MS/MS under MRM condition and isotope dilution method, using d2-labelled internal standards obtained by simple synthetic procedures. The assay has been performed under MRM condition monitoring two transitions for each analyte to improve the specificity. This paper deals with a modern approach for assaying the content of this polyphenols in virgin olive oil down to a limit of a few hundreds of parts per billion. Tyrosol and hydroxytyrosol ranged from 10 to 47 ppm and from 5 to 25 ppm in commercial olive oil, respectively. The accuracy (98–107%) and analytical parameters values confirm the reliability of the proposed approach. The method can be extended to any natural matrices, including mill wastes, after a simple step of sample preparation.