Assessment of Multi-Mycotoxin Exposure in Southern Italy by Urinary Multi-Biomarker Determination

Abstract

Human exposure assessment to deoxynivalenol (DON), aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), fumonisin B1 (FB1), zearalenone (ZEA) and ochratoxin A (OTA) can be performed by measuring their urinary biomarkers. Suitable biomarkers of exposure for these mycotoxins are DON + de-epoxydeoxynivalenol (DOM-1), aflatoxin M1 (AFM1), FB1, ZEA + α-zearalenol (α-ZOL) + β-zearalenol (β-ZOL) and OTA, respectively. An UPLC-MS/MS multi-biomarker method was used to detect and measure incidence and levels of these biomarkers in urine samples of 52 volunteers resident in Apulia region in Southern Italy. The presence of ZEA + ZOLs, OTA, DON, FB1 and AFM1 were detected in 100%, 100%, 96%, 56% and 6%, of samples, respectively. All samples contained biomarkers of two or more mycotoxins. The mean concentrations of biomarkers ranged from 0.055 ng/mL (FB1) to 11.89 ng/mL (DON). Urinary biomarker concentrations were used to estimate human exposure to multiple mycotoxin. For OTA and DON, 94% and 40% of volunteers, respectively exceeded the tolerable daily intake (TDI) for these mycotoxins. The estimated human exposure to FB1 and ZEA was largely below the TDI for these mycotoxins for all volunteers.

Strategies for estimating human exposure to mycotoxins via food

“…Results of epidemiological studies on mycotoxins using biomonitoring have been reported in the past two decades (Duarte et al, 2012;Ediage et al, 2013;Gilbert et al, 2001;Pena et al, 2006;Rubert et al, 2011;Turner et al, 2010;Van der Westhuizen et al, 2011). These studies were based on only one urine sample per person, and thus the collection can be fairly easy (Heyndrickx et al, 2014;Solfrizzo et al, 2014). However, authors of a recent study, whereby the exposure to DON in three EU countries using these urinary biomarkers was assessed, strongly advice to collect 24-hours urine (Brera et al, 2015).…”

“…Samples can be used for analysis of multiple contaminants; allows estimation of chronic and acute exposure to contaminants. and body weight (Gratz et al, 2014;Rodriguez-Carrasco et al, 2014;Sarkanj et al, 2013;Solfrizzo et al, 2014;Turner et al, 2008;Wallin et al, 2013;Warth et al, 2012). This re-calculation is only possible for toxins showing a rapid elimination and short mean residence time (like for example DON).…”

“…glucosides, sulphates), which may become available for absorption after conversion to the parent compound in the gastrointestinal tract (EFSA, 2014a;Solfrizzo et al, 2014). These modified mycotoxins are those forms that may not be included in the currently applied analytical methods, partly since analytical standards and reference materials are not yet available or because the (modified) mycotoxins are not extracted with the applied methods.…”

Challenges in risk assessment of multiple mycotoxins in food

“…The number of analytes studied simultaneously varied between four (Warth et al, 2012a) and 33 (Heyndrickx et al, 2015) compounds. The use of β-glucuronidase-assisted hydrolysis (in order to increase the levels of the parent toxins) (Ahn et al, 2010;Shephard et al, 2013;Solfrizzo et al, 2011Solfrizzo et al, , 2014Wallin et al, 2015), immunoaffinity columns (IAC) (Ahn et al, 2010;Rubert et al, 2011;Shephard et al, 2013;Solfrizzo et al, 2011Solfrizzo et al, , 2014Wallin et al, 2015) and solid-phase extraction (SPE) (Heyndrickx et al, 2015;Njumbe Ediage et al, 2012;Rodríguez-Carrasco et al, 2014a,b;Shephard et al, 2013;Solfrizzo et al, 2011Solfrizzo et al, , 2014Wallin et al, 2015) were applied by some authors as sample preparation and clean-up procedures. However, some studies have also successfully used the so-called dilute and shoot approach by omitting any cleanup procedure (Abia et al, 2013;Ezekiel et al, 2014;Gerding et al, 2014Gerding et al, , 2015Heyndrickx et al, 2015;Shephard et al, 2013;Warth et al, 2012a,b).…”

“…All over the world, recent surveys highlight the fact that humans are more frequently exposed to multiple than to single mycotoxins (De Ruyck et al, 2015;Grenier and Oswald, 2011;Solfrizzo et al, 2014;Stoev, 2015) given the natural co-occurrence of mycotoxins in food and the globalisation of food markets (McKean et al, 2006). Furthermore, climate changes towards an increase of temperature and humidity in certain European regions are expected to favour the growth of contaminating fungi, thereby increasing the likelihood of food commodities contamination with mycotoxins (Paterson and Lima, 2010).…”