Multi-mycotoxin analysis by UHPLC-HESI-MS/MS: A preliminary survey of Serbian wheat flour

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present a high throughput method for the determination of eleven Fusarium, Aspergillus and Penicillium mycotoxins in wheat flour from Serbia. Mycotoxins were extracted from samples by one-step solvent extraction (acetonitrile-water (86:14, v/v)) without any cleanup and directly injected into an ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography/heated electrospray ionization-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HESI-MS/MS) system. The chromatographic separation was achieved in only 4 min. Quantification was performed by external calibration with matrix-matched standard solutions. The method recovery, linearity, limit of detection (LOD), and limit of quantification (LOQ) were determined. The developed method has been applied to the analysis of samples of wheat flour collected from Serbian local markets.