Development and Validation of on-line SFE-SFCMS/MS Method for Screening of Aflatoxins B1, B2, G1 and G2 in Grain Matrices

Introduction

Aflatoxins B1, B2, G1 and G2 are produced by Aspergillus fungi, which are known to have carcinogenic effects in human. Approaches to determine these analytes in various food matrices often require the use of substantial volumes of organic solvent in manual extraction and clean-up procedure such as immunoaffinity columns. Supercritical fluid carbon dioxide (SFCO2), an environmentally-benign solvent, has received increasing attention as an alternative in extraction and chromatography. Integrating supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) and chromatography (SFC) using SFCO2, the Nexera UC system (Shimadzu) allows fully-automated on-line sample extraction and analysis, which eliminates the tedious steps of manual operation of sample pre-treatment and reduces the running cost. This novel system was applied successfully in analysis of contaminants in agricultural products and PFCs in textiles. We describe here a further application of the SFE-SFC- MS/MS platform in fully-automated screening from extraction to quantitative analysis of aflatoxin B1, B2, G1 and G2, which are regulated strictly in food and agricultural products. Improved accuracy in quantitation was obtained by using internal standard method, which compensates largely the variation due to different matrices in SFE and matrix effect in MS analysis.

December 6, 2019 GMT