Trends in Multitoxin Analysis
Risk assessments of common food products for the presence of mycotoxins must be regularly performed to identify which classes are currently of interest (e.g. aflatoxins, ergots, fumonisins, ochratoxins, tricothecenes, zearalenone) from a health, economic and legal perspective. Their prevalence continually varies depending on many factors including the region, cultivation practices of agricultural commodities, weather and storage conditions. Analysis is necessary to assess their impact on human and animal health (acute or chronic), which is dependent upon levels of mycotoxins present and their effects (e.g. synergistic or additive) when different types of toxins occur together. Whilst legislation and guidance limits seek to address acute and chronic effects, recent advances in analysis using HPLC and LC MS/MS – particularly by companies such as Waters Corp. – have increased the possibilities for simultaneous detection of mycotoxins. Another Waters company, Vicam Corp., has led the field in immunoaffinity column development for multi-toxin analysis with the widest range available (e.g. AflaOchra, AOZ, DON-NIV, T2-HT2). This combination of multitoxin immunoaffinity columns for sample preparation and improvements in detection technologies has permitted low level detection of two or more toxins from a single sample extract. With LC MS/MS, screening for the presence of 200 or more mycotoxins is possible, though in doing so at such low levels, detection is inevitably compromised. Therefore, a narrower screen of the major classes of mycotoxins is preferred using such columns as Vicam’s Myco6in1+ columns, which detect eight different types of toxins (aflatoxins, ochratoxin A, fumonisins, deoxynivalenol, zearalenone, nivalenol, T-2 and HT-2 toxins).