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Abstract
Human biomonitoring constitutes a suitable tool to assess exposure to toxins overcoming the disadvantages of traditional methods. Urine constitutes an accessible biological matrix in biomonitoring studies. Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced naturally by filamentous fungi that produce a wide range of adverse health effects. Thus, the determination of urinary mycotoxin levels is a useful tool for assessing the individual exposure to these food contaminants. In this study, a suitable methodology has been developed to evaluate the presence of aflatoxin B2 (AFB2), aflatoxin (AFG2), ochratoxin A (OTA), ochratoxin B (OTB), zearalenone (ZEA), and α-zearalenol (α-ZOL) in urine samples as exposure biomarkers. For this purpose, different extraction procedures, namely, the Solid Phase Extraction (SPE); Dispersive Liquid–Liquid Microextraction (DLLME); and Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, and Safe (QuEChERS) methods were assessed, followed by Liquid Chromatography coupled to Quadrupole Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry with Electrospray Ionization (LC-ESI-QTOF-MS) determination. Then, the proposed methodology was applied to determine mycotoxin concentrations in 56 human urine samples from volunteers and to estimate the potential risk of exposure. The results obtained revealed that 55% of human urine samples analyzed resulted positive for at least one mycotoxin. Among all studied mycotoxins, only AFB2, AFG2, and OTB were detected with incidences of 32, 41, and 9%, respectively, and levels in the range from <LOQ to 69.42 µg/L. Risk assessment revealed a potential health risk, obtaining MoE values < 10,000. However, it should be highlighted that few samples were contaminated, and that more data about mycotoxin excretion rates and their BMDL10 values are needed for a more accurate risk assessment.
Highlights
IntroductionTraditional evaluation exposure to mycotoxins is often carried out combining the analysis of chemicals in foodstuffs with food consumption data
This study focuses on the presence of the major mycotoxins with human health concerns: AFs, ochratoxin A (OTA), and ZEA
Lower recovery values ranging from 7 to 30% were obtained with the Solid Phase Extraction (SPE) method, being OTA the mycotoxin with lowest recovery percentage achieved (7%)
Summary
Traditional evaluation exposure to mycotoxins is often carried out combining the analysis of chemicals in foodstuffs with food consumption data. This indirect approach presents some disadvantages such as the lack of information related to the individual exposure situation, toxicokinetics, and bioavailability of the selected food contaminants [1]. This approach presents the difficulty of obtaining accurate data on food consumption and the bioavailability of toxins. The use of non-invasive urine sampling is the most frequent [3,4,5]
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