Abstract
Natural toxins are chemical substances that are not toxic to the organisms that produce them, but which can be a potential risk to human health when ingested through food. Thus, it is of high interest to develop advanced analytical methodologies to control the occurrence of these compounds in food products. However, the analysis of food samples is a challenging task because of the high complexity of these matrices, which hinders the extraction and detection of the analytes. Therefore, sample preparation is a crucial step in food analysis to achieve adequate isolation and/or preconcentration of analytes and provide suitable clean-up of matrix interferences prior to instrumental analysis. Current trends in sample preparation involve moving towards “greener” approaches by scaling down analytical operations, miniaturizing the instruments and integrating new advanced materials as sorbents. The combination of these new materials with sorbent-based microextraction technologies enables the development of high-throughput sample preparation methods, which improve conventional extraction and clean-up procedures. This review gives an overview of the most relevant analytical strategies employed for sorbent-based microextraction of natural toxins of exogenous origin from food, as well as the improvements achieved in food sample preparation by the integration of new advanced materials as sorbents in these microextraction techniques, giving some relevant examples from the last ten years. Challenges and expected future trends are also discussed.
Highlights
Natural toxins are chemical substances naturally produced by living organisms that are not toxic to them, but which can be potential health hazards to humans when ingested through food
These substances may naturally occur in food endogenously or exogenously [1,2]
The World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration with the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Codex Alimentarius Commission have established a legislation for mycotoxins and marine toxins [13,14], whereas pyrrolizidine, tropane and opioid alkaloids are in the process of being legislated, and at the moment only recommendations have been established for them [15,16,17]
Summary
Natural toxins are chemical substances naturally produced by living organisms (animal, plants or microorganisms) that are not toxic to them, but which can be potential health hazards to humans when ingested through food. The WHO in collaboration with the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Codex Alimentarius Commission have established a legislation for mycotoxins and marine toxins [13,14], whereas pyrrolizidine, tropane and opioid alkaloids are in the process of being legislated, and at the moment only recommendations have been established for them [15,16,17] In this sense, maximum residue limits (MRLs) for many of these natural toxins have been established in these guidelines to control the occurrence of these compounds in food [13,18].
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