Rapid mycotoxin analysis in human urine: A pilot study

A simple and rapid method effective for quantitative determination of deoxynivalenol (DON), T-2 toxin (T-2), HT-2 toxin (HT-2), zearalenone (ZEN), ochratoxin A (OTA), aflatoxins (AFs) B1, B2, G1 and G2 and fumonisins FB1 and FB2 in urine was developed. The urine was diluted with phosphate buffer solution (PBS) and thoroughly mixed. For clean-up and extraction, the mixture was loaded on a MYCO 6in1™ IAC. Hybrid triple quadrupole-linear ion trap mass spectrometer (QTrap®) was used for the detection. Extra tools for confirmation of selected mycotoxins in positive samples, Information Dependent Acquisition (IDA) experiments, were also developed. The use of immunoaffinity columns followed by the LC–MS/MS analysis showed acceptable average recoveries between 83% and 116% and reached acceptable precision values (relative standard deviation (RSD) ⩽ 14%). In a pilot study with 27 volunteers, OTA, DON and AFG2 were detected. However, this study needs to be extended in order to understand the relation between the mycotoxins intake and mycotoxin levels in human urine.