Abstract
Considering crops are susceptible to toxicogenic fungi during plantation, pre-processing and storage, an ultra-fast liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UFLC-QTrap-MS/MS) method was developed and validated for simultaneous determination of the 12 most frequent mycotoxins, including aflatoxin B1, B2, G1, G2, HT-2, T-2 toxin, ochratoxin A, fumonisin B1, B2, zearalanone, zearalenone, and deoxynivalenol, in 14 batches of Tartary buckwheat cultivar, collected from different origins in Sichuan Province, China. Differing from those complicated approaches, a simple and cost-efficient pretreatment method based on dilute-and-shoot was employed. Based on optimized chromatographic and mass spectrometry conditions, these 12 mycotoxins could be analyzed with high correlation coefficients (all over 0.995), high precision (RSD 0.47–9.26%), stability (RSD 0.72–11.36%), and recovery (79.52% to 108.92%, RSD 4.35–14.27%). Furthermore, this analysis method exhibited good determination performance with little disturbance of the matrix effect. Finally, this proposed method was applied for 14 batches of Tartary buckwheat seeds, in which aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) was detected in one moldy cultivar, Meigu No. 2, with its concentration exceeding the maximum residue limits set by EU regulations. The method thus established, which has significant advantages, could provide a preferred determination approach candidate for measurement of multiple mycotoxins measurement in Tartary buckwheat, even other kinds of foodstuffs.
Highlights
Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum Gaertn.), known as bitter buckwheat, is an excellent edible and medicinal crop mainly grown in the mountainous regions of Southwest China, northernIndia, Bhutan, Nepal and Slovenia [1,2]
The aim of this study was to establish a simple and rapid methodology based on LC-MS/MS for the simultaneous determination of 12 mycotoxins (Figure 1), including aflatoxin B1, B2, G1, G2 (AFB1, AFB2, AFG1 and AFG2 ), HT-2, T-2 toxin (HT-2, T-2), ochratoxin A (OTA), fumonisin B1, B2 (FB1, FB2 ), zearalanone (ZAN), zearalenone (ZON), deoxynivalenol (DON) in 14 batches of Tartary buckwheat
Were evaluated, whereby elution mobile phase and flow rate were optimized in view of the high sensitivity and satisfactory separation efficiencies composition and flow rate were optimized in view of the high sensitivity and satisfactory of the 12 mycotoxins
Summary
Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum Gaertn.), known as bitter buckwheat, is an excellent edible and medicinal crop mainly grown in the mountainous regions of Southwest China, northernIndia, Bhutan, Nepal and Slovenia [1,2]. Don)), the renewed and increasing interest in the utilization of Tartary buckwheat relies on various health benefits, such as anti-hypertension [3], anti-fatigue [4], cholesterol-lowering [5], and so on. These bioactivities can be attributed to the bioactive phytochemicals it contains, e.g., flavonoids [6,7]. A number of both epidemiological and basic studies have validated its essential health. For this reason, the production of Toxins 2018, 10, 28; doi:10.3390/toxins10010028 www.mdpi.com/journal/toxins
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