Targeted screening of pesticides, veterinary drugs and mycotoxins in bakery ingredients and food commodities by liquid chromatography‐high‐resolution single‐stage Orbitrap mass spectrometry

Abstract

In the food industry, it is frequently necessary to check the quality of an ingredient to decide whether to use it in production and/or to have an idea of the final possible contamination of the finished product. The current need to quickly separate and identify relevant contaminants within different classes, often with legal residue limits on the order of 1-100 µg kg(-1), has led to the need for more effective analytical methods. With thousands of organic compounds present in complex food matrices, the development of new analytical solutions leaned towards simplified extraction/clean-up procedures and chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. Efforts must also be made regarding the instrumental phase to overcome sensitivity/selectivity limits and interferences. For this purpose, high-resolution full scan analysis in mass spectrometry is an interesting alternative to the traditional tandem mass approach. A fast method for extracting and purifying bakery matrices was therefore developed and combined with the exploitation of ultra-high-pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC) coupled to a Orbitrap Exactive™ high-resolution mass spectrometer (HRMS). Extracts of blank, naturally contaminated and fortified minicakes, prepared through a combined use of industrial and pilot plant production lines, were analyzed at different concentration levels (1-100 µg kg(-1)) of various contaminants: a limit of detection at 10 µg kg(-1) was possible for most of the analytes within all the categories analyzed, including pesticides, aflatoxins, trichothecene toxins and veterinary drugs. The application of accurate mass targeted screening described in this article demonstrates that current single-stage HRMS analytical instrumentation is well equipped to meet the challenges posed by chemical contaminants in the screening of both bakery raw materials and finished products.

Comprehensive analysis of toxics (pesticides, veterinary drugs and mycotoxins) in food by UHPLC-MS

“…Pesticides, mycotoxins (aflatoxins and trichothecene toxins) and veterinary drugs have been determined in bakery products, such as milk, flour and minicakes [69]. The use of an optimized chromatographic profile allows the separation of isobaric compounds, such as simazine and desethylterbuthylazine (m/z 202.0854), highlighting that, although HRMS could be very useful for multi-target screening, the chromatographic step is still very important during the development of analytical methods.…”

Advanced LC–MS-based methods to study the co-occurrence and metabolization of multiple mycotoxins in cereals and cereal-based food

“…The most comprehensive studies describing the use of HRMS techniques in multimycotoxin analysis were published by Herebian et al [81], Rubert et al [52], De Dominics et al [82], and Beccari et al [53]. These articles cover the main mycotoxin representatives of Fusarium, Claviceps, Aspergillus, Penicillium, and Alternaria fungi and the applicability of TOF and Orbitrap MS systems for both screening and quantitative analysis of the respective toxins in cereal-based matrices.…”

Advanced Mass Spectrometry

“…Targeted screening of pesticides, veterinary drugs, and mycotoxins in bakery ingredients and food commodities [178] Type Application References…”