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October 21, 2019

Adisseo conduct mycotoxin survey on wheat in Poland

by Radka Borutova; Global Scientific &Technical manager at Adisseo, France

The term 'mycotoxins' defines secondary fungal metabolites that cause biochemical, physiologic and/or pathologic changes in other species, which include vertebrates, other animal groups, plants, and microbes. Mycotoxins have low molecular weight molecules (Mw <700) and are toxic in low concentrations (Haschek & Voss, 2013). Even though hundreds of compounds have been isolated and chemically characterized as mycotoxins, only approximately 50 have been studied in detail (CAST, 2003).

The 2019 Adisseo mycotoxin survey included 117 wheat samples from across Poland. The survey provided insight into the incidence of aflatoxin B1 (AfB1), zearalenone (ZEN), deoxynivalenol (DON), T-2 toxin, HT-2 toxin, fumonisin B1 (FB1), fumonisin B2 (FB2) and ochratoxin A (OTA). The wheat samples were collected directly from farms or animal feed production sites. Sample providers were advised to follow the principles of good sampling (Richard, 2000).
 
Image credit: Clare Black on Flickr
(CC BY 2.0)

Analytical personnel and laboratory staff were not involved and therefore did not influence the sampling process at any stage. All 117 samples were collected almost immediately after harvesting, so the probability of storage mycotoxins (e.g. OTA) developing was low. All 8 mycotoxins were analysed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC MS/MS).

For the purpose of data analysis, non-detection levels were based on the limits of quantification (LOQ) of the test method for each mycotoxin: AfB1 <0,5 μg/kg; ZEN <10 μg/kg; DON <75 μg/kg; FB1 <125 μg/kg; FB2 <50 μg/kg; OTA <1 μg/kg; T-2 toxin < 4 μg/kg and HT-2 toxin <4 μg/kg.
Figure 1: Comparison between average concentration of positive samples μg/kg
(DON and ZEN) in 2017, 2018 and 2019
Image credit: Adisseo
Results
The results showed that 29 percent of the wheat samples were contaminated with DON. Only three percent of samples contained ZEN.

The average concentrations of the recovered mycotoxins were medium to high. The maximum concentration of DON recovered in one of the samples was 2300 μg/kg, which was eight times higher than the DON concentration of 247 μg/kg reported last year. As expected, few samples (1%) were contaminated with OTA, and the maximum concentration in a single sample was also low (45.5 ug/kg). The results also showed that 56 percent of the samples were contaminated with HT-2 toxin and the maximum concentration recovered was 283 μg/kg. None of the samples contained AfB1 and FB2. Unexpectedly, three percent of the samples were contaminated with FB1, a typical maize fusarium mycotoxin, and the maximum concentration recovered was 3750 μg/kg which was high and could be a consequence of global climate change (Moretti et al., 2019). The maximum concentration of ZEN recovered was 400 μg/kg which is a concern as can cause detrimental health effects in all animal species.
 
Figure 2: Average number of mycotoxins in analysed samples [%]
Image credit: Adisseo

The levels of DON contamination recovered in wheat in 2019 were much higher than those recovered in 2018 and 2017 (Figure 1). The average number of positive samples in 2019 was approximately 2.5 times those of 2017 and 5 times higher than in 2018. In addition, the average concentration of samples contaminated with ZEN was approximately 3-times higher in 2019 than in 2017 and 2018 (Figure 1). In 2018, slightly fewer mycotoxins were detected (DON, ZEN, T-2 toxin and OTA) compared to 2019 where 6 mycotoxin types (DON, ZEN, T-2, HT-2, FB1 and OTA) were detected.

Visit the Adisseo website, HERE.
 

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