CSI TULLN - INSTANT SCREENING FOR CONTAMINANTS BECOMES REALITY
Analysis of 1000 food contaminants in 15 minutes
Picture: Lidija Kenjeric
Picture: Lidija Kenjeric
Picture: Lidija Kenjeric
In TV series like CSI or Dr. House, the effort required for broad screening for toxins or contaminants seems insignificant, and often the result is discussed already in the very next scene.
In reality, until recently, it was necessary to aliquote the sample, i.e., divide it into exactly equal parts, and apply several elaborate sample preparation and purification protocols in parallel to eliminate interfering substances in order to cover different classes of target analytes, which of course took a considerable amount of time. Recent developments in increasing sensitivity and, above all, robustness of mass spectrometers used for trace analysis, allowed reducing sample preparation to a single extraction step followed by analysis of the diluted crude extract – but the limit of this approach as considers the scope of the method has never been investigated.
To explore the limits of this approach in terms of the number of substances that can be recorded simultaneously, we have come up with a proof of principle for the parallel quantitative analysis of 1400 agro-contaminants, mainly toxins of moulds (mycotoxins) and weeds (plant toxins), as well as pesticides (insecticides and herbicides), and antibiotics, earlier in this project. The actual consumption of time is 45 minutes for instrumental analysis. Now we intend to reduce the time for analysis by two thirds by modifying instrumental parameters used for chromatography and mass spectrometry. In addition, we plan to develop alternative, specific methods for substances that are not compatible with the generic, i.e., substance classbased approach. These substances comprise only a minor fraction, but include well-known contaminants such as glyphosate.
The developed methods will be used as versatile screening tools for the investigation of samples from the two company partners BIOMIN and BARILLA on a global scale as well as a comprehensive longitudinal domestic monitoring of mycotoxins in cooperation with the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety. For the latter task complementary data on sample varieties and meteorological as well as conditions will be collected in order to predict changes in the pattern of mycotoxins and the aetiological fungal population in view of global warming. Moreover, by taking advantage of this multi-toxin approach, we will explore the range of mycotoxin metabolites which are produced by plants and insects during bio-detoxification processes.
Lead Researcher:
Univ. Prof. Dr. Rudolf Krska
Head
Institute of Bioanalytics and Agro-Metabolomics, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna
+43 1 47654-97301
www.boku.ac.at
