Preparative isolation and purification of zearalenone from rice culture by combined use of macroporous resin column and high-speed counter-current chromatography

Zearalenone is one of the most harmful mycotoxins found in grains and there is a large demand for zearalenone substrate for research purposes. A new separation method was developed for the preparative purification of zearalenone from rice culture of Fusarium graminearum by utilizing macroporous resin column combined with high-speed counter-current chromatography. Zearalenone was adsorpted on XAD-2 resin at 25 °C, neutral pH and a feed flow of 4 BV/h, followed by dynamic desorption by 60% ethanol solution. Further purification was achieved by high-speed counter-current chromatography using an optimized biphasic solvent system. A total of 267 mg of zearalenone crystal was obtained in one single run from 4.2 g of crude extract. The purity of the final product was 98.9% and the total recovery yield of zearalenone in this study was 73.9%. This dual-step purification procedure provided an effective way to obtain the costly mycotoxin for both toxicological and detoxification studies on zearalenone.