Abstract
This review deals with analytical techniques which are applied for the determination of mycotoxins in biological matrices. Mycotoxins are small (MW < 800) and naturally toxic secondary metabolites produced by a wide range of fungal species. Their common occurrence in food and feed poses a danger to the health of humans and animals. These secondary metabolites can act as mutagenic, carcinogenic, teratogenic, neurotoxic and genotoxic. On the basis of these fungal-related health risks, producers, scientific researchers and main regulatory and inspection authorities in the field of food and feed safety became very interested in establishing sensitive analytical methods for the detection of certain or multiple compound classes of the fugal species (e.g. aflatoxins, ochratoxins and trichothecenes). The aim of this work is to present analytical methods for monitoring mycotoxins including ultra- and high performance liquid chromatography (UPLC/HPLC) coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) compared with high resolution Orbitrap™ technology. Sample pre-treatment methods such as solid phase extraction (SPE), and liquid-liquid-extraction (LLE) are shortly discussed in this review, since they will influence the instrument choice in future experiments. Future prospects and current challenges in performing mycotoxins analysis are also outlined.
Keywords: LC-MS/MS, Orbitrap, Mycotoxins, Multi-compound analysis
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