| Summary: | As a filamentous and spoilage fungus, <i>Alternaria</i> spp. can not only infect processing tomatoes, but also produce a variety of mycotoxins which harm the health of human beings. To explore the production of <i>Alternaria</i> toxins in processing tomatoes during growth and storage, four main <i>Alternaria</i> toxins and four conjugated toxins were detected by ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) and ultra-performance liquid chromatography-ion mobility quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-IMS QToF MS) in processing tomatoes on different days after being inoculated with <i>A. alternata</i>. The results show that the content of <i>Alternaria</i> toxins in an in vivo assay is higher than that under field conditions. Tenuazonic acid (TeA) is the predominant toxin detected in the field (205.86~41,389.19 μg/kg) and in vivo (7.64~526,986.37 μg/kg) experiments, and the second-most abundant toxin is alternariol (AOH). In addition, a small quantity of conjugated toxins, AOH-9-glucoside (AOH-9-Glc) and alternariol monomethyl ether-3-glucoside (AME-3-Glc), were screened in the in vivo experiment. This is the first time the potential of <i>Alternaria</i> toxins produced in tomatoes during the harvest period has been studied in order to provide data for the prevention and control of <i>Alternaria</i> toxins.
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