Fumonisins in Brazilian corn-based foods for infant consumption

Abstract

A survey of 196 samples of corn-based infant foods from 13 cities of Sao Paulo State, Brazil, was carried out to investigate the fumonisin contamination in the products. Based on their ingredients, the products were divided into seven groups: infant cereal designated as types A-D, corn meal, corn starch and instant cereal baby food. Although certain infant food samples were free of fumonisin contamination (<20 microg kg(-1); corn starch and infant cereals of type A, B and D), contamination levels in the other products (corn meal, instant corn-based baby food and cereal type C) were of concern, particularly those in corn meal. All samples in these categories contained fumonisins. The mean level for total fumonisins (FB1 + FB2 + FB3) in corn meal was 2242 microg kg(-1) (maximum 8039 microg kg(-1)), in instant corn-based baby food was 437 (maximum 1096) microg kg(-1) and in infant cereal type C was 664 (maximum 1753) microg kg(-1).

Determination of fumonisins B1 and B2 in Portuguese maize and maize-based samples by HPLC with fluorescence detection

“…These methods generally involve liquid extraction, with mixtures of polar solvents, such as methanol/ water [16,17], acetonitrile/water [18], methanol/acetonitrile/water [19], and acetonitrile/NaH 2 PO 4 [20]. A clean-up procedure is frequently applied that usually employs solidphase extraction (SPE) columns such as with reversedphase columns [18,20], strong anion exchange columns (SAXs) [8,21], and immunoaffinity columns (IACs) [17,22] that present higher specificity. Different derivatization reagents have been reported, namely, o-phthaldialdehyde (OPA)-the most used [8,9,21], naphthalene-2,3-dicarboxaldehyde (NDA) [19,20,23], and 4-fluoro-7-nitrobenzofurazan (NBD-F) [24].…”

“…A clean-up procedure is frequently applied that usually employs solidphase extraction (SPE) columns such as with reversedphase columns [18,20], strong anion exchange columns (SAXs) [8,21], and immunoaffinity columns (IACs) [17,22] that present higher specificity. Different derivatization reagents have been reported, namely, o-phthaldialdehyde (OPA)-the most used [8,9,21], naphthalene-2,3-dicarboxaldehyde (NDA) [19,20,23], and 4-fluoro-7-nitrobenzofurazan (NBD-F) [24]. Detection and quantification have preferentially been performed using HPLC with fluorescence or mass spectrometry detection [8,9,21,22,[25][26][27][28] although other chromatographic, electrophoretic, and immunological methods have been reported [15].…”

Metodologias analíticas para determinação das fumonisinas em milho e alimentos à base de milho

“…Assim, deve-se acidificar os extractos a pH 3 ou 4, adicionando ácido ortofosfórico (H 3 PO 4 ) ou ácido clorídrico (HCl). Preferencialmente deve-se substituir a água do solvente de extracção por dihidrogenofosfato de sódio (NaH 2 PO 4 ) 0,1M a pH 3,0 para assegurar uma extracção e uma retenção eficientes de todas as fumonisinas 35,37,41,42 . Outra opção, com o objectivo de melhorar a extracção de fumonisinas a partir de alimentos tratados com cálcio, consiste em recorrer à mistura EDTA (19 a 79,4 mM de acordo com a concentração de cálcio nas amostras)/metanol (1:1) 42 .…”

“…A FLA foi também usada por Ross et al 45 . O ortoftaldeído é o reagente mais usado na derivatização das fumonisinas, entrando sempre na sua preparação o 2-mercaptoetanol (MCE), usado como agente redutor 9,22,25,[34][35][36]38 . A reacção de derivatização com OPA e MCE é rápida e reprodutível à temperatura ambiente e em tampão borato (pH 9-10), sendo o método aceite pela AOAC International.…”

“…A cromatografia líquida com detecção de fluorescência é amplamente usada na análise de fumonisinas em alimentos para consumo humano e animal 59 . Numerosos investigadores recorrem ao detector de fluorescência 9,34,35,38,57 , enquanto outros usam o espectrofluorímetro 45,46,52,53 . Todavia, a determinação de fumonisinas por HPLC não dispensa a utilização de reagentes de derivatização, uma vez que, como referenciado anteriormente, se trata de moléculas sem fluorescência nativa.…”