Determination of ochratoxin A in pig tissues by liquid?liquid extraction and clean-up and high-performance liquid chromatography

Abstract

A fast, simple, and sensitive HPLC–FD method is described for determination of ochratoxin A (OTA) in pig kidney and muscle; a small mass (-1 level were 86±15% and 74±8% for kidney and muscle, respectively, and detection limits were 0.14 and 0.15 ng g -1. Clean-up by solid-phase extraction (SPE) is required for pig liver. A survey of the OTA content of tissues of pigs slaughtered in southern Italy revealed that 52 out of 54 analysed samples were contaminated; the OTA concentration in kidney ranged between 0.26 and 3.05 ng g -1. The effect of measurement precision on compliance with legal limits is also discussed.