Determination of 9 Kinds of Mycotoxins in Maize by Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography-tandem Mass Spectrometry

In order to effectively detect the biological toxins in maize, 80% acetonitrile -0.1% formic acid aqueous solution extraction, QuEChERS purification, methanol −0.1% formic acid +5 mmol/L ammonium formate aqueous solution using C18 column and gradient elution separation, electrospray positive and negative ions simultaneous scanning, and multiple reaction monitoring mode synthesis method of gathering data were applied to simultaneously determine nine mycotoxins including aflatoxin B1, aflatoxin B2, fumonisin B1, fumonisin B2, fumonisin B3, vomitoxin, 3-acetyl-deoxynivalenol, 15-acetyl-deoxynivalenol and zearalenone. Results showed that, the linear relationship of 9 kinds of mycotoxins were good in the concentration range of 0.25~250 μg/L, the correlation coefficient was above 0.9999, the detection limit was 0.079~ 1.8 μg/kg, the quantitative limit was 0.26~6.0 μg/kg, the recovery rate was 80.2%~113.8%, the relative standard deviation ≤ 7.7%. Nine mycotoxins were detected in 240 maize samples in Jilin province by this method, in which the aflatoxin B1, B2 were not detected, but the other seven toxins were detected. The detection rate of zearalenone was the lowest (14.6%) and FB2 was the highest (98.3%). This method is simple, sensitive, reproducible and accurate. It is suitable for the simultaneous determination of mycotoxins in maize. © 2021 Authors. All rights reserved.