Comparison of two commercial methods with a UHPLC-MS/MS method for the determination of multiple mycotoxins in cereals

Immunoassay-based techniques are important on-site screening tools for the detection of mycotoxins in cereals. This study aims to evaluate the trueness, precision, repeatability and cross-reactivity of commercially available test strips, ELISA kits and UHPLC-MS/MS on analyzing zearalenone, ochratoxin A, deoxynivalenol, T-2 toxin and fumonisin B1. The results showed that false negative rate (25.7 %-37.4 %) of all tested mycotoxins by test strips was higher than the false positive rate (0 %-31.0 %). The repeatability of ELISA kits at the declared LOD dispersed from -85.7 % to +98.4 %. ELISA kits were more accurate at 50 % of the maximum residue limit (MRL) of mycotoxins than 150 % and 200 %. All the tested deoxynivalenol/zearalenone derivatives had cross-reactivity with different level, and sample matrix could reinforce this overestimation of target mycotoxin. This study emphasized that higher-quality antibody screening and more analytical performance investigations are need to address for on-site detection of mycotoxins in the future.