Development of a multi-mycotoxin liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry method for sweet pepper analysis

A multi‐mycotoxin method was developed for the simultaneous determination of trichothecenes (nivalenol, deoxynivalenol, 3‐acetyldeoxynivalenol, 15‐acetyldeoxynivalenol, neosolaniol, fusarenon‐X, diacetoxyscirpenol, HT‐2 toxin, T‐2 toxin), aflatoxins (aflatoxin‐B1, aflatoxin‐B2, aflatoxin‐G1 and aflatoxin‐G2), Alternaria toxins (alternariol, alternariol methyl ether and altenuene), fumonisins (fumonisin‐B1, fumonisin‐B2 and fumonisin‐B3), ochratoxin A, zearalenone, beauvericin and sterigmatocystin in sweet pepper. Sweet pepper was extracted with ethyl acetate/formic acid (99:1, v/v). After splitting up the extract, two‐thirds of the extract was cleaned up using an aminopropyl column followed by an octadecyl column. The remaining part was cleaned up using a strong anion‐exchange column. After recombination of both cleaned parts of the sample extract, the combined solvents were evaporated and the residue was dissolved in mobile phase; 20 µL was injected into the chromatographic system, so only one run was used to separate and detect the mycotoxins in positive electrospray ionization using selected reaction monitoring. The samples were analyzed with a Micromass Quattro Micro triple quadrupole mass spectrometer (Waters, Milford, MA, USA). The mobile phase consisted of variable mixtures of water and methanol, 1% acetic acid and 5 mM ammonium acetate. The limits of detection of the multi‐mycotoxin method varied from 0.32 µg.kg−1 to 42.48 µg.kg−1. The multi‐mycotoxin liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) method fulfilled the method performance criteria required by the Commission Regulation (EC) No 401/2006. Sweet peppers inoculated by Fusarium species were analyzed using the developed method. Beauvericin (9–484 µg.kg−1) and fumonisins (fumonisin‐B1 up to 4330 µg.kg−1, fumonisin‐B2 up to 4900 µg.kg−1, and fumonisin‐B3 up to 299 µg.kg−1) were detected. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.