A quantitative UHPLC-MS/MS method for citrinin and ochratoxin A detection in food, feed and red yeast rice food supplements
Mycotoxins may cause deleterious effects (among others nephrogenic, hepatogenic, carcinogenic, teratogenic, neurogenic) in animals and humans, therefore they have been intensely studied and monitored over the years. For citrinin (CIT), a nephrotoxic mycotoxin, however, this has not yet been the case. According to the latest European Food Safety Authority report, a correct risk assessment of CIT was not possible due to the lack of occurrence data. Besides, traces of CIT or its metabolite, dehydrocitrinone are widely (in up to 90% of samples) present in human urine according to recent Belgian and German scientific reports, which might imply chronic exposure. Only recently, a European maximum limit has been set for CIT in cholesterol reducing food supplements including red yeast fermented rice (RYR). During production of RYR through fungal (among others Monascus purpureus) fermentation of rice other components, like CIT, as well as nephrotoxic ochratoxin A (OTA) may form. Consequently, the present work attempted develop to a robust and routinely applicable ultra-high performance liquid chromatographytandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) method for the analysis of CIT and OTA in food, feed and in RYR food supplements. The method was successfully validated based on EU/657/2002 and EU/519/2014 in RYR food supplements and wheat flour, achieving respective limits of quantification (LOQ) for CIT of 0.4 μg/kg and 0.1 μg/kg and for OTA of 15 μg/kg and 0.4 μg/kg. The average between-day recoveries varied from 72 to 110% with relative standard deviations ≤16%. Single-day validation in rice, curry and apple matrices showed LOQs ranging from 0.3-1.0 μg/kg. Next, the occurrence of CIT/OTA was surveyed in 138 RYR, food and feed samples, proving the potential of this method for future data acquisition within a risk assessment framework specifically for CIT, while also gaining information about the (co-)occurrence of OTA in edible matrices.