Determination of Aflatoxins in Various Food Matrices by Fluorescence HPLC Analysis

Introduction

Aflatoxins are toxic metabolites produced by two fungi species, Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus, and can be found on various staple foodstuffs around the world. They exist in four major forms and these compounds are both carcinogenic and mutagenic, with B₁ being the most potent.

Contamination of foodstuffs is heavily regulated world wide. The EU has the most stringent restrictions with maximum levels found on foodstuffs for human consumption limited to 2 µg/kg B 1 and the sum of all aflatoxins (B₁, B₂, G₁, G₂) to 4 µg/kg. Detection at these levels often necessitates post column derivatization or more expensive techniques like LC/MS.

This work demonstrates a fast and robust chromatographic separation and quantitation of Aflatoxin B₁, B₂, G₁, and G₂ using a PerkinElmer LC 300^™ HPLC System with fluorescence detection without post column derivatization.