Chromatographic methods for the simultaneous determination of mycotoxins and their conjugates in cereals

About 300–400 mycotoxins are known today. To some extent these compounds show very different physicochemical properties, which led to a vast quantity of analytical methods for single toxins or certain classes of mycotoxins in a variety of matrices. Due to synergistic effects of co-occurring toxins, endeavors have been made to simultaneously detect and quantify several classes of mycotoxins. This paper discusses several of the published LC-MS/MS multi-mycotoxin-methods and also introduces a new method, which allows the concurrent detection and quantification of 90 major mycotoxins and other secondary fungal metabolites in cereals. Even more, known plant derived metabolites of mycotoxins, like zearalenone-4-glucoside or deoxynivalenol-3-glucoside are included in this method. The significance of mycotoxin conjugates is briefly discussed as well.