Determining Fumonisins in Corn by High Performance Liquid Chromato-graphy with Immunoaffinity Column Cleanup

Abstract

Fumonisins are mycotoxins produced mainly by Fusarium verticillioides. It is frequently found that corn is contami-nated by fumonisins during its growth and storage. Epidemic study demonstrated that corn and corn-based products contaminated by fumonisins can cause equine leukoencephalomalacia and swine pulmonary oedema, also induce oesophageal cancer and neural tube defects of mankind. In this paper, a high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method with immunoaffinity column cleanup was established to determine the fumonisins B1 (FB1) and B2 (FB2) in corn. Meanwhile, the accuracy and reproducibility of the method were evaluated by statistical technique. The results showed that the linear ranges of FB1 and FB2 were 0.06–5.00 μg mL?1 and 0.04–2.50 μg mL?1, the recovery ranges were 76.6–93.8% and 77.9–93.4%, respectively. The quantification limit of FB1 and FB2 was 0.09 mg kg?1 and 0.06 mg kg?1, respectively. The coefficient of variation within-laboratory repeatability was below 5%, and that between-laboratories reproducibility was below 6%. Research results indicated that this method possessed good line-arity, accuracy, precision, sensitivity, repeatability within a laboratory and among laboratories. Therefore, this method was proved to be suitable for determination of fumonisins in corn. Applying this method, fumonisins in 310 specimens of corn were deter-mined. Results showed that total fumonisins (B1+ B2) ranged from 0.20 to 9.06 mg kg?1 for field corn, and from 0.21 to 6.10 mg kg?1 for stored corn. It is proposed that monitoring fumonisins’ level in corn should be reinforced to protect the health of man and livestock.