Chromatographic methods for the simultaneous determination of mycotoxins and their conjugates in cereals

About 300-400 mycotoxins are known today. To some extent these compounds show very different physicochemical properties, which led to a vast quantity of analytical methods for single toxins or certain classes of mycotoxins in a variety of matrices. Due to synergistic effects of co-occurring toxins, endeavors have been made to simultaneously detect and quantify several classes of mycotoxins. This paper discusses several of the published LC-MS/MS multi-mycotoxin-methods and also introduces a new method, which allows the concurrent detection and quantification of 90 major mycotoxins and other secondary fungal metabolites in cereals. Even more, known plant derived metabolites of mycotoxins, like zearalenone-4-glucoside or deoxynivalenol-3-glucoside are included in this method. The significance of mycotoxin conjugates is briefly discussed as well.