Determination of zearalenone in barley by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with evaporative light scattering detection and natural occurrence of zearalenone in functional food

Zearalenone (ZEA) is one of the most widely distributed mycotoxins produced by Fusarium species, responsible for important diseases of barley. The present work shows the results of a rapid and accurate method to quantify ZEA in barley. The method uses the Quick Easy Cheap Effective Rugged and Safe method (QuEChERS) for purification and high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with an evaporative laser scattering detector (HPLC–ELSD) for detection and quantification of the toxin. Barley samples were extracted with methanol and used acetonitrile–water–methanol (46:46:8, v/v) as mobile phase. Average recoveries of ZEA from barley spiked at levels of 0.1–10 μg/g ranged from 83.0% to 91.5%, with relative standard deviations of <6%. The detection limit was 1.56 ng/g based on a signal-to-noise ratio of 3:1. Using this method, we have analysed a total of 175 samples of 35 functional food marketed in China. The results showed that the overall level of ZEA contamination was relatively low (5.14%) and the presence of ZEA was found in nine samples at concentrations ranging from 11.09 to 26.54 ng/g.