Deoxynivalenol (DON), zearalenone (ZEA), aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), fumonisin B1 (FB1), and ochratoxin A (OTA) are the main mycotoxins frequently co-occurring in food/beverage worldwide. They are mainly produced by Fusarium graminearum (DON, ZEA), Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus (AFB1), F. verticillioides and F. proliferatum (FB1), Penicillium verrucosum and A. carbonarius (OTA). These fungi can colonize plants and agricultural products and produce mycotoxins either in the field, at harvest and during storage. Since the complete elimination of these contaminants from agricultural commodities is practically impossible they can be find in food/feed derivatives with negative effects on animal and human health. It is therefore important to identify and measure the amount of mycotoxins ingested daily with the diet in order to establish if the exposure is below or above the tolerably daily intake (TDI) established for each mycotoxin. The use of modern methodologies based on LC-MS/MS have demonstrated that foods are often contaminated with a cocktail of mycotoxins. LC-MS/MS is also used to determine urinary mycotoxins and their key metabolites that can be used to calculate the daily mycotoxin ingestion. We have developed a sensitive UPLC-MS/MS method which is capable to determine urinary mycotoxin biomarkers at concentrations usually occurring in humans living in developed countries. This method was used to detect and measure incidence and concentrations of the above mentioned mycotoxins and relevant key metabolites in urines of 52 volunteers resident in South Italy. The presence of ZEA + ZOLs, OTA, DON, FB1 and AFM1 were detected in 100%, 100%, 96%, 56% and 6%, of urines, respectively. All samples contained biomarkers of two or more mycotoxins. The mean concentrations of biomarkers ranged from 0.055 ng/mL (FB1) to 11.89 ng/mL (DON). Urinary biomarker concentrations were used to estimate human exposure to multiple mycotoxin. For OTA and DON, 94% and 40% of volunteers, respectively exceeded the TDI for these mycotoxins whereas for FB1 and ZEA all volunteers were largely below the TDI. These results highligh the importance of using sensitive methods to determine urinary mycotoxin biomarkers and suggest to conduct epidemiological studies to assess multi-mycotoxin exposure in human and animal populations with different food/feed diets.

Urinary biomarkers for human multi-mycotoxin exposure

251st National Meeting (2016)

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