Bioavailability of insect growth regulator residues in citrus

The aim of this study was to increase the knowledge in the field of bioavailability of pollutants in agricultural food samples. Bioavailability of flufenoxuron, lufenuron, pyriproxyfen and fenoxycarb was studied in a common commodity as mandarin in vitro. Not only was it studied in fresh fruit but also in standards and canned mandarin to be able to establish matrix-related differences. Human gastric digestion, intestinal digestion and absorption were imitated. Porcine pepsin, porcine pancreatin, bile salts and semipermeable cellulose dialysis tubing were used. Dialysis values were lower than 15% and followed this order: standards > processed samples > fresh samples. The highest dialyzable values were observed for fenoxycarb and pyriproxyfen. The higher the digested amount of pesticide, the higher the dialysed amount.