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Submitted to: Association Official Analytical Chemists Annual Intrl Meeting & Exposition
Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: 9/12/1996 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: Zearalenone is a non-steroidal estrogenic mycotoxin produced by many Fusarium species which colonize cereal grains in the field and in storage. This compound is associated with reproductive disorders in animals, primarily pigs, and possibly in humans. Since this mycotoxin occurs in corn, barley, wheat, and sorghum under certain weather conditions, analytical procedures for screening, quantitating, and confirming the identity of zearalenone were developed for these matrices. Official methods using TLC and HPLC, with sensitivities of more than 300 ng/g and 50 ng/g, respectively, are the most commonly used methods for cereal grains. Since zearalenone-contaminated grains may be consumed by animals, more sensitive methods were developed to detect zearalenone and its metabolites, alpha-zearalenol and beta- zearalenol, in meat tissues, milk, serum, and urine. Since a derivative of zearalenone, zeranol (alpha-zearalanol), is used commercially as a growth promoter, procedures had to be developed to distinguish between the naturally occurring toxin and its metabolites from the growth promoter and its metabolites. This procedure, sensitive to 1 ng/g, uses HPLC with electrochemical detection and capillary GC/MS for confirmation of metabolite identity. Recent environmentally friendly procedures for zearalenone and its metabolites include supercritical fluid extraction coupled with SPE columns (to trap extracted toxins), in vitro test systems for total estrogenic activity in cereal extracts, and tandem immunoaffinity- enzyme linked immunosorbent assays. |
