Occurrence of Emerging Mycotoxins in Chicken Feed and Eggs from Algeria

Abstract

Poultry farming has developed into one of Algeria's most productive agricultural indus-tries because of the growing demand for sources of protein among Algerian society. Laying hen feed consists mainly of cereals, which can be contaminated with molds and subsequently with their secondary metabolites known as mycotoxins. These later can pose a serious danger to the produc-tion and quality of eggs in the commercial layer industry. This work focuses on the detection of emerging mycotoxins, mainly enniatins (ENNs) and beauvericin (BEA), in poultry feed and eggs from different locations in Algeria. Two different QuEChERS-based extractions were established to extract ENNs and BEA from chicken feed and eggs. The determination of mycotoxins occurrence was achieved by a UHPLC-MS/MS method using 0.1% (v/v) formic acid in water and MeOH as mobile phase, an ESI interface operating in positive mode and a triple quadrupole mass spectrom-eter operating in MRM for the detection. Matrix-matched calibration curves were carried out for both matrices, obtaining good linearity (R2 > 0.99). The method performance was assessed in terms of extraction recovery (from 87% to 107%), matrix effect (from -47% to -86%), precision (RSD < 15%) and limits of quantitation (≤1.1 µg/kg for feed and ≤ 0.8 µg/kg for eggs). The analysis of 10 chicken feed samples and 35 egg samples showed that ENN B1 was the most common mycotoxin (i.e. found in 9 samples) with contamination levels ranging from 3.6 to 41.5 µg/kg, while BEA was detected only in one sample (12 µg/kg). However, eggs were not found to be contaminated with any my-cotoxin at the detection limit levels. Our findings indicate that the searched mycotoxins are present in traces in feed and absent in eggs. This can be explained by the application of mycotoxins binder. However, this does not put a stop on the conduction of additional research and ultimately setting regulations to prevent the occurrence of emerging mycotoxins.