A two-year study on the occurrence and concentration of mycotoxins in corn varieties with different endosperm...

Mycotoxin monitoring in cereal grains has great importance in the food and feed industries. This study evaluated mycotoxin contamination in corns with different endosperm textures in 2 years of cultivation. Samples of dent, semi-dent, flint and semi-flint corns from field experiments were analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS).

Occurrences of fumonisins B₁ (FB₁ ) and B₂ (FB₂ ) in 2020 were 45.72% (mean 270 μg kg^-1 ) and 35.89% (94.97 μg kg^-1 ), respectively, and 68.98% (446 μg kg^-1 ) and 45.83% (152 μg kg^-1 ) in 2021. Occurrence of aflatoxin B₁ was 11.96% (0.16 μg kg^-1 ) in 2020 and 11.11% (0.13 μg kg^-1 ) in 2021. In 2020, deoxynivalenol (DON) and zearalenona (ZEA) presented occurrences of 1.28% and 1.70%, with means of 4.08 and 2.45 μg kg^-1 , respectively. In 2021, results were 8.33% (31.00 μg kg^-1 ) for DON and 8.79% (4.38 μg kg^-1 ) for ZEA. Citrinin, diacetoxyscirpenol and fusarenon-X did not occur in 2020 but presented 1.66%, 0.83%, and 2.50% positive rates in 2021, respectively. In 2020, flint corn presented the lowest concentration of FB₁ whereas dent corn presented the highest concentration of FB₁ and FB₂ (P < 0.05). In 2021, dent corn presented the highest means of FB₁ , FB₂ and diacetoxyscirpenol (P < 0.05). Dent and semi-dent presented the highest concentration of nivalenol (P < 0.05).

The endosperm texture influenced mycotoxin contamination in corn grains, especially FB₁ and FB₂ , which had the highest concentration in dent corn in the 2 years of this study. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry.