Mycotoxin screening in food grain produced in the Russian Federation in 2020

Sedova I.B., Zakharova L.P., Chalyy Z.A., Tutelyan V.A.

Federal Research Centre of Nutrition, Biotechnology and Food Safety, Moscow, Russia

This paper presents data on contamination of food wheat, maize, barley, oat, rye, soy, triticale, and gram with 30 mycotoxins produced by fungus Fusarium, Aspergillus, Alternaria, Penicillium. High-performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry was used to analyze 237 grain samples of 2020 harvest from eight Federal Districts (Central, Volga, Ural, Siberian, the Far Eastern, Northwestern, Southern, and Northern Caucasus). The most spread contaminants of food grain harvested in 2020 were tentoxin in 42% cases, deoxynivalenol (11%), and cyclopiazonic acid (11%); for maize – fumonisins. Ochratoxin A, aflatoxins, zearalenone, T-2 and HT-2 toxins, citrinin, sterigmatocystin, ochratoxin B, alternariol and its methyl ether, altenuene, and mycophenolic acid were present in grain as well. Deoxynivalenol was detected not only in maize, wheat, barley, and oat from the Far Eastern, Southern, and Northern Caucasus Federal Districts but also from the Central and Northwestern Federal Districts. 10% grain samples were contaminated simultaneously with two and more mycotoxins of different fungus producers. The estimated intake of DON with wheat processing products both in the country as a whole and in the risk group (in the Southern and the North Caucasian Federal District) did not exceed the provisional maximum tolerable daily intake of deoxynivalenol – 1 mkg/kg of body weight and amounted to 0.10 and 0.12 mkg/kg of body weight per day respectively.