QuEChERS-based extraction procedure and rapid resolution liquid chromatography coupled to triple quadrupole mass spectrometry for the determination of nine mycotoxins in cereal-based complementary foods for infants and young children

A rapid method has been developed for the determination of aflatoxins B1, B2, G1 and G2, ochratoxin A, zearalenone, T-2 toxin, deoxynivalenol and fumonisin B1 in cereal-based complementary foods for infants and young children. The mycotoxins were extracted from the samples using a modified QuEChERS-based extraction procedure without any further clean-up step. The separation of the analytes was carried out on an Agilent XDB C18 column (50 mm x 2.1 mm, 1.8 microm) using the mobile phases of acetonitrile and 5 mmol/L ammonium acetate-0.1% (volume percentage) formic acid aqueous solution with gradient elution. The extract was determined by rapid resolution liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Matrix-matched calibration was used for the quantification. The proposed method showed good linear correlation with the correlation coefficients all above 0.98. The blank samples were fortified at three levels, and the recoveries ranged from 77.6% to 105.7% with the RSDs from 2.5% to 13.7%. The limits of detection ranged from 0.1 microg/kg to 15.8 microg/kg. The developed method was successfully applied for mycotoxin analysis in 41 samples bought from markets. The method shows advantages in both accuracy and sensitivity, and is suitable for the rapid multi-aflatoxin screening in cereal-based complementary foods for infants and young children.