Sforza Stefano, Dall'asta Chiara, Marchelli Rosangela
Department of Organic and Industrial Chemistry, University of Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 17/a, I-43100, Parma, Italy.
Mass Spectrom Rev. 2006 Jan-Feb;25(1):54-76. doi: 10.1002/mas.20052.
Mycotoxins are fungal toxins produced by molds, which occur universally in food and feed derivatives, and are produced under certain environmental conditions in the field before harvest, post-harvest, during storage, processing, and feeding. Mycotoxin contamination is one of the most relevant and worrisome problem concerning food and feed safety because it can cause a variety of toxic acute and chronic effects in human and animals. In this review we report the use of mass spectrometry in connection with chromatographic techniques for mycotoxin determination by considering separately the most diffuse class of mycotoxins: patulin, aflatoxins, ochratoxin A, zearalenone, trichothecenes, and fumonisins. Although the selectivity of mass spectrometry is unchallenged if compared to common GC and LC detection methods, accuracy, precision, and sensitivity may be extremely variable concerning the different mycotoxins, matrices, and instruments. The sensitivity issue may be a real problem in the case of LC/MS, where the response can be very different for the different ionization techniques (ESI, APCI, APPI). Therefore, when other detection methods (such as fluorescence or UV absorbance) can be used for the quantitative determination, LC/MS appears to be only an outstanding confirmatory technique. In contrast, when the toxins are not volatile and do not bear suitable chromophores or fluorophores, LC/MS appears to be the unique method to perform quantitative and qualitative analyses without requiring any derivatization procedure. The problem of exact quantitative determination in GC/MS and LC/MS methods is particularly important for mycotoxin determination in food, given the high variability of the matrices, and can be solved only by the use of isotopically labeled internal standards or by the use of ionization interfaces able to lower matrix effects and ion suppressions. When the problems linked to inconstant ionization and matrix effects will be solved, only MS detectors will allow to simplify more and more the sample preparation procedures and to avoid clean-up procedures, making feasible low-cost, high-throughput determination of mycotoxins in many different food matrices.
霉菌毒素是由霉菌产生的真菌毒素，普遍存在于食品和饲料衍生物中，在收获前的田间、收获后、储存、加工及喂养期间的特定环境条件下产生。霉菌毒素污染是食品和饲料安全方面最相关且令人担忧的问题之一，因为它会对人和动物造成各种急性和慢性毒性影响。在本综述中，我们分别考虑了最常见的霉菌毒素类别：展青霉素、黄曲霉毒素、赭曲霉毒素A、玉米赤霉烯酮、单端孢霉烯族毒素和伏马菌素，报告了质谱联用色谱技术在霉菌毒素测定中的应用。尽管与常见的气相色谱（GC）和液相色谱（LC）检测方法相比，质谱的选择性无可争议，但针对不同的霉菌毒素、基质和仪器，其准确性、精密度和灵敏度可能会有极大差异。在液相色谱 - 质谱联用（LC/MS）的情况下，灵敏度问题可能是个实际问题，因为不同的电离技术（电喷雾电离（ESI）、大气压化学电离（APCI）、大气压光电离（APPI））的响应可能差异很大。因此，当其他检测方法（如荧光或紫外吸收）可用于定量测定时，LC/MS似乎只是一种出色的确证技术。相反，当毒素不挥发且没有合适的发色团或荧光团时，LC/MS似乎是无需任何衍生化程序即可进行定量和定性分析的唯一方法。鉴于基质的高度变异性，GC/MS和LC/MS方法中准确的定量测定问题在食品中霉菌毒素的测定中尤为重要，并且只有通过使用同位素标记的内标或能够降低基质效应和离子抑制的电离接口才能解决。当与不稳定电离和基质效应相关的问题得到解决时，只有质谱检测器将能够越来越简化样品制备程序并避免净化程序，从而使在许多不同食品基质中低成本、高通量测定霉菌毒素成为可能。
