Multiclass mycotoxins in lotus seeds analysed by an isotope-labelled internal standard-based UPLC-MS/MS

Abstract Objectives This study aimed to explore the residue levels of multiclass mycotoxins in medicinal and edible lotus seeds. Methods A rapid and reliable isotope-labelled internal standard-based UPLC-MS/MS method was developed and validated for sensitive and accurate analysis of multiclass mycotoxins including aflatoxins (AFB1, AFB2, AFG1 and AFG2), ochratoxin A (OTA), zearalenone (ZEN), deoxynivalenol (DON), fumonisins (FB1 and FB2), T-2 and HT-2 toxins in lotus seeds. Some critical conditions such as extract solution with the addition of isotope-labelled internal standard, type of mobile phase and the elution condition were scientifically optimized. The 11 mycotoxins obtained satisfactory resolution and sensitive detection in multiple reactions monitoring scanning mode combined with the ion switching technology in positive and negative ion switching mode. Key findings The developed isotope-labelled internal standard-based UPLC-MS/MS method exhibited an approving linearity (r ≥ 0.9984), high sensitivity (limit of detection in the range of 0.015–30.05 μg/kg), acceptable precision (RSDs ≤6.3%) and good recovery (76.0–116.0%) for 11 analytes, respectively. Ten batches of real lotus seed samples were tested, and three batches out of which were contaminated with AFB1, FB2, T-2 and ZEN. AFB1 showed the highest occurrence rate (30%) with contents of 10.50 and 8.32 μg/kg in two samples over the official limit (5.0 μg/kg). Conclusions The monitoring of multiclass mycotoxins in Chinese herbal medicines is in great urgency to ensure the security of consumers. The proposed method could be further utilized for simple, sensitive and rapid detection of more mycotoxins in other complex matrices to compensate for matrix effects.