Simultaneous multi-mycotoxin determination in nutmeg by ultrasound-assisted solid–liquid extraction and immunoaffinity column clean-up coupled with liquid chromatography and on-line post-column photochemical derivatization-fluorescence detection

Abstract

A simple and sensitive analytical method based on ultrasound-assisted solid–liquid extraction and immunoaffinity column clean-up coupled with high performance liquid chromatography and on-line post-column photochemical derivatization-fluorescence detection (USLE-IAC-HPLC-PCD-FLD) has been developed for simultaneous multi-mycotoxin determination of aflatoxins B₁, B₂, G₁, G₂ (AFB₁, AFB₂, AFG₁, AFG₂) and ochratoxin A (OTA) in 13 edible and medicinal nutmeg samples marketed in China. AFs and OTA were extracted from nutmeg samples by ultrasonication using a methanol : water (80 : 20, v/v) solution, followed by an IAC clean-up step. Different USL extraction conditions, pre-processing ways for nutmeg sample and clean-up columns for mycotoxins, as well as HPLC-PCD-FLD parameters (mobile phase, column temperature, elution procedure, excitation and emission wavelengths) were optimized. This method, which was appraised for analyzing nutmeg samples, showed satisfactory results with reference to limits of detection (LODs) (from 0.02 to 0.25 μg kg⁻¹), limits of quantification (LOQs) (from 0.06 to 0.8 μg kg⁻¹), linear ranges (up to 30 ng mL⁻¹ for AFB₁, AFG₁ and OTA and 9 ng mL⁻¹ for AFB₂ and AFG₂), intra- and inter-day variability (all 1 was the most frequently found mycotoxin in 30.8% of nutmeg samples at contamination levels of 0.73–16.31 μg kg⁻¹. At least two different mycotoxins were co-occurred in three samples, and three AFs were simultaneously detected in one sample.