Recent developments and workflows of non-targeted LC-HRMS screening in the detection of veterinary drug residues in foods

Monitoring veterinary drug residues in food is one key link to ensuring food safety. In recent years, non-targeted screening technology based on liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) has attracted widespread attention. However, the development and application of non-targeted screening methods still face many challenges due to the constantly updated variety of veterinary drugs, the complexity of sample matrices, the large amount of data, and the cumbersome data identification process. To address the above challenges, this review systematically proposes a workflow for non-targeted screening, focusing on the research progress in sample preparation, instrument analysis, data preprocessing, and recognition strategy. In addition, it summarizes molecular formula prediction models, chemical structure prediction models, and retention time validation models, discusses the latest application of this technique in detecting veterinary drug residues in food, providing new insights to meet the challenges of non-targeted screening.