Development of a liquid chromatography/time-of-flight mass spectrometric method for the simultaneous determination of trichothecenes, zearalenone and aflatoxins in foodstuffs

• Published in: Rapid communications in mass spectrometry Vol. 20; no. 9; pp. 1422 - 1428
• Main Authors: Tanaka, Hiroki, Takino, Masahiko, Sugita-Konishi, Yoshiko, Tanaka, Toshitsugu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.01.2006
• Subjects: Aflatoxins - analysis; Aspergillus - chemistry; Bread - analysis; Calibration; Chromatography, Liquid; Flour - analysis; Food Contamination - analysis; Fusarium - chemistry; Mass Spectrometry; Mycotoxins - analysis; Reference Standards; Reproducibility of Results; Trichothecenes - analysis; Triticum - chemistry; Zea mays - chemistry; Zearalenone - analysis
• ISSN: 0951-4198; 1097-0231
• DOI: 10.1002/rcm.2460

A liquid chromatography/atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry (LC/APCI‐MS) method based on time‐of‐flight MS (TOFMS) with a real‐time reference mass correction technique was developed for the simultaneous determination of Fusarium mycotoxins (nivalenol, deoxynivalenol, fusarenon X, 3‐acetyldeoxynivalenol, 15‐acetyldeoxynivalenol, HT‐2 toxin, T‐2 toxin, diacetoxyscirpenol, zearalenone) and Aspergillus mycotoxins (aflatoxin B1, aflatoxin B2, aflatoxin G1, aflatoxin G2) in corn, wheat, cornflakes and biscuits. Samples were cleaned up with a MultiSep #226 column. Detection of the mycotoxins was carried out in exact mass chromatograms with a mass window of 0.03 Th. Calibration curves were linear from 2 to 200 ng · mL−1 for trichothecenes and zearalenone, and 0.2 to 20 ng · mL−1 for aflatoxins, by 20 µL injection. The limits of detection ranged from 0.1 to 6.1 ng · g−1 in foodstuffs analyzed in this study. The LC/TOFMS method was found to be suitable for the screening of multiple mycotoxins in foodstuffs rapidly and with high sensitivity, and its performance was demonstrated for the confirmation for target mycotoxins. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.