Natural Occurrence of <i>Alternaria</i> Toxins in Agricultural Products and Processed Foods Marketed in South Korea by LC–MS/MS

<i>Alternaria</i> mycotoxins including alternariol (AOH), alternariol monomethyl ether (AME), altenuene (ALT), altertoxin-I (ATX-I), tentoxin (TEN), and tenuazonic acid (TeA), are ubiquitous contaminants in agricultural products. A method for the simultaneous determination of these six t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: So Young Woo, Sang Yoo Lee, Tae Kyun Jeong, Su Mi Park, Joong Hyuck Auh, Han-Seung Shin, Hyang Sook Chun
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022-11-01
Series:Toxins
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6651/14/12/824
Description
Summary:<i>Alternaria</i> mycotoxins including alternariol (AOH), alternariol monomethyl ether (AME), altenuene (ALT), altertoxin-I (ATX-I), tentoxin (TEN), and tenuazonic acid (TeA), are ubiquitous contaminants in agricultural products. A method for the simultaneous determination of these six toxins by ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) with solid phase extraction (SPE) was validated in rice, sesame, tomato, and apple juice matrices. The performance of the method was evaluated in terms of linearity (<i>R</i><sup>2</sup> > 0.999), the limit of detection (0.04–1.67 μg/kg), the limit of quantification (0.12–5.06 μg/kg), recovery (80.0–114.7%), and precision (<17.7%). The validated method was applied to monitor 152 marketed food samples in South Korea, as well as to investigate the co-occurrence and correlation between <i>Alternaria</i> toxins. The mean occurrence levels were 2.77 μg/kg for AOH, 4.36 μg/kg for AME, 0.14 μg/kg for ALT, 0.11 μg/kg for ATX-I, 0.43 μg/kg for TEN, and 104.56 μg/kg for TeA. Mean and extreme (95th percentile) daily dietary exposures of South Koreans to <i>Alternaria</i> toxins were estimated to be 22.93 ng/kg b.w./day and 86.07 ng/kg b.w./day, respectively.
ISSN:2072-6651