Abstract: Gibberellins (GAs) are a class of plant hormones that are widely found in plants, which play a crucial role in plant growth, development, and response to environmental stress. GAs are a class of tetracyclic diterpenic acids whose basic structure is 20-carbon gibberellin. So far, 136 GAs have been found. As GAs have been extensively applied in agricultural products and intensive research efforts have been made on their toxicity in recent years, their potential to cause food safety issues has become a subject of growing concern. Accurate analysis of GAs are helpful for better understanding their metabolism, physiological activity and toxicity. Due to their instability and extremely low content (generally ng/g, even pg/g levels), the pretreatment techniques and analytical methods for the detection of GAs in complex matrices are being continuously updating. This article reviews the development and breakthroughs of pretreatment techniques and analytical methods for trace analysis of GAs over the past 10 years, and future development trends are discussed.

Key words: gibberellins, chromatography-mass spectrometry, trace analysis, pretreatment techniques, analytical methods