Determination of trichothecenes in cereals and derived products by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

Veronica Maria Teresa Lattanzio (1) , Michele Solfrizzo (1) , Angelo Visconti (1)

1 ISPA - Institute of Sciences of Food Production

A sensitive, accurate and precise method for the simultaneous determination of nivalenol (NIV), deoxynivalenol (DON), T-2 toxin (T-2) and HT-2 toxin (HT-2) in different food matrices, including wheat, maize, barley, cereal-based infant foods, snacks, biscuits and wafers has been developed. The method, using liquid chromatography coupled with atmospheric pressure chemical ionization triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (LC-APCI-MS/MS), allowed unambiguous identification of the selected trichothecenes at low µg/kg levels in such complex food matrices. A clean up procedure, based on reversed phase SPE Oasis® HLB columns was used, allowing good recoveries for all studied trichothecenes. In particular, NIV recoveries resulted significantly improved as compared with those obtained by using Mycosep® #227 columns for the clean up of the extracts. Limits of detection in the various investigated matrices, ranged from 2.5 to 4.0 µg/kg for NIV, from 2.8 to 5.3 µg/kg for DON, from 0.4 to 1.7 µg/kg for HT-2, from 0.4 to 1.0 µg/kg for T-2. Mean recovery values, obtained from cereals and cereal products spiked with NIV, DON, HT-2 and T-2 toxins at levels from 10 to 1000 µg/kg, ranged from 72% to 110% with mean relative standard deviation lower than 10%. A systematic investigation of matrix effects in different cereals and cereal products was also carried out by statistically comparing the slopes of standard calibration curve with matrix-matched calibration curve for each of the 4 toxins and the 8 matrices tested herein. For seven out of the 8 matrices tested statistically significant matrix effects were observed, indicating that for accurate quantitative analysis matrix-matched calibration was necessary. The method was applied to the analysis of 57 samples of ground wheat originated from South Italy, and of 9 cereal food samples collected from retail market.

Mots clés: Life Sciences

Veronica Maria Teresa Lattanzio, Michele Solfrizzo, Angelo Visconti. Determination of trichothecenes in cereals and derived products by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Food Additives and Contaminants, 2008, 25 (03), pp.320-330. ⟨10.1080/02652030701513792⟩. ⟨hal-00577418⟩