Simultaneous quantification of mycotoxins HT-2, T-2, diacetoxyscirpenol and neosolaniol by LC-MS/MS in different cereal matrices.

The contamination of foods and feeds with mycotoxins, secondary metabolites produced by some fungal species, is an important issue that has been studied for several years because of its potential negative effect for the health of people and animals. Cereal crops are one of the most susceptible products to contamination by several of these metabolites, such as aflatoxins, fumonisins, ochratoxins, deoxynivalenol, zearalenone, which are the mycotoxins of greatest public concern from the point of view of health and agroeconomic importance. For these mycotoxins, maximum limits have been established based on Regulation (EU) 2023/915. Thus, for aflatoxins the limit values are in a range of 4-15 μg/kg, fumonisins between 800-4000 μg/kg, ochratoxins between 2-20 μg/kg, deoxynivalenol between 500-1750 μg/kg and zearalenone between 75-400 μg/kg. All these values are applied to food and feed, depending on the type of product considered. However, there is a group of mycotoxins known as emerging mycotoxins that can potentially contaminate cereals and for which there are no legal limits because previous studies have shown a low prevalence and concentration of these mycotoxins. For some of these mycotoxins, namely T2, HT2, diacetoxyscirpenol (DAS) and neosolaniol (NEO), the control entities have recently established recommendations because their incidence in food and feed has been rapidly increasing over the years. Furthermore, exposure to these mycotoxins in very small amounts can cause acute effects, especially in children and the elderly. Therefore, simultaneous analytical methods for the rapid, sensitive and accurate determination of these mycotoxins in cereals and cereal-based products are required to reduce costs and analysis times, protect consumers from risk of exposure, enable monitoring programs in the production and supply chain of food, and to ensure that adequate regulatory levels are set by the EU or other international organisations. For their potential risk to human’s and animal’s health, this study aims at setting up a protocol to quantify HT-2, T-2, DAS and NEO mycotoxins in different cereal matrices using the LC-MS/MS technique and applying validation parameters such as specificity, repeatability, recovery and robustness of the test method. The quantification was optimized taking into account the recommendations established by the European Union for these mycotoxins.