Screening of polypeptide toxins as adulteration markers in the food containing wild edible mushroom by liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry

Overview of industrial food fraud and authentication through chromatography technique and its impact on public health

Food fraud is widespread nowadays in the food products supply chain, from raw materials processing to the final product and during storage and transport. The most frequent fraud is practiced in staple food commodities like cereals. Their origin, variety, genotype, and bioactive compounds are altered to deceive consumers. Similarly, in various food sectors like beverage, baking, and confectionary, items like melamine, flour improver, and food colors are used in the market to temple consumers. To tackle food fraud and authentication, non-destructive techniques are being used. These techniques have limitations like lack of standardization, interference from multiple absorbing species, ambiguous results, and time-consuming to perform, depending on the type, size, and location of the system proved difficult to quantify the samples of adulteration. Chromatography has been introduced as an effective technique. It serves to safeguard public health due to its detection capabilities. Chromatography proved a crucial tool against fraudulent practices to preserve consumer trust.

Analytical methods for amatoxins: A comprehensive review

Amatoxins are toxic bicyclic octapeptides found in certain wild mushroom species, particularly Amanita phalloides. These mushrooms contain predominantly α- and β-amanitin, which can lead to severe health risks for humans and animals if ingested. Rapid and accurate identification of these toxins in mushroom and biological samples is crucial for diagnosing and treating mushroom poisoning. Analytical methods for the determination of amatoxins are critical to ensure food safety and prompt medical treatment. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the research literature on the determination of amatoxins in clinical specimens, biological and mushroom samples. We discuss the physicochemical properties of toxins, highlighting their influence on the choice of the analytical method and the importance of sample preparation, particularly solid-phase extraction with cartridges. Chromatographic methods are emphasised with a focus on liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry as one of the most relevant analytical method for the determination of amatoxins in complex matrices. Furthermore, current trends and future perspectives in amatoxin detection are also suggested.

Review of Recent Modern Analytical Technology Combined with Chemometrics Approach Researches on Mushroom Discrimination and Evaluation

Mushroom is a macrofungus with precious fruiting body, as a food, a tonic, and a medicine, human have discovered and used mushrooms for thousands of years. Nowadays, mushroom is also a "super food" recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and favored by consumers. Discrimination of mushroom including species, geographic origin, storage time, etc., is an important prerequisite to ensure their edible safety and commodity quality. Moreover, the effective evaluation of its chemical composition can help us better understand the nutritional properties of mushrooms. Modern analytical technologies such as chromatography, spectroscopy and mass spectrometry, etc., are widely used in the discrimination and evaluation researches of mushrooms, and chemometrics is an effective means of scientifically processing the multidimensional information hidden in these analytical technologies. This review will outline the latest applications of modern analytical technology combined with chemometrics in qualitative and quantitative analysis and quality control of mushrooms in recent years. Briefly describe the basic principles of these technologies, and the analytical processes of common chemometrics in mushroom researches will be summarized. Finally, the limitations and application prospects of chromatography, spectroscopy and mass spectrometry technology are discussed in mushroom quality control and evaluation.

Identification of matB used as an endogenous reference gene for the qualitative and real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction detection of Lentinus edodes

Lentinus edodes is a fungus with rich nutritional value and good medicinal value and has accordingly become a substitute for other expensive wild edible mushrooms. In this study, for the first time, the matB gene was selected as an endogenous reference gene of L. edodes and identified as the species-specific gene. The matB genes of L. edodes and 18 non-L. edodes species were determined by qualitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR), but no amplification was found in non-L. edodes species. In SYBR Green quantitative PCR analysis, the detection limit was as low as 16 pg/µl of DNA template. All of these experiments indicated that the matB gene is an ideal reference gene and can detect L. edodes material through qualitative and quantitative PCR assays. It also provides a convenient and accurate approach for the detection of L. edodes products and the adulteration in wild edible mushroom products.

Human Poisoning from Poisonous Higher Fungi: Focus on Analytical Toxicology and Case Reports in Forensic Toxicology

Several families of higher fungi contain mycotoxins that cause serious or even fatal poisoning when consumed by humans. The aim of this review is to inventory, from an analytical point of view, poisoning cases linked with certain significantly toxic mycotoxins: orellanine, α- and β-amanitin, muscarine, ibotenic acid and muscimol, and gyromitrin. Clinicians are calling for the cases to be documented by toxicological analysis. This document is therefore a review of poisoning cases involving these mycotoxins reported in the literature and carries out an inventory of the analytical techniques available for their identification and quantification. It seems indeed that these poisonings are only rarely documented by toxicological analysis, due mainly to a lack of analytical methods in biological matrices. There are many reasons for this issue: the numerous varieties of mushroom involved, mycotoxins with different chemical structures, a lack of knowledge about distribution and metabolism. To sum up, we are faced with (i) obstacles to the documentation and interpretation of fatal (or non-fatal) poisoning cases and (ii) a real need for analytical methods of identifying and quantifying these mycotoxins (and their metabolites) in biological matrices.

Reverse-phase/phenylboronic-acid-type magnetic microspheres to eliminate the matrix effects in amatoxin and phallotoxin determination via ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

In this study, we present the preparation of a new reverse-phase/phenylboronic-acid (RP/PBA)-type mixed-mode magnetic solid-phase extraction (MSPE) adsorbent for use in the cleanup of amatoxin- and phallotoxin-containing samples intended for ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) analysis. Further, the RP/PBA magnetic microspheres have phenyl and phenylboronic acid groups on their surfaces that selectively adsorb amatoxins and phallotoxins through hydrophobic, π-π, and boronate affinity, significantly reducing matrix effects in UPLC-MS/MS analysis. After systematic optimization, all the standard calibration curves expressed satisfactory linearity (r > 0.9930), limits of detection (0.3 μg/kg), and recovery (97.6%-114.2%). Compared with other reported methods, this method also has the advantages of simple, fast, and efficient operation using relatively small amounts of the MSPE adsorbent. Furthermore, the method was successfully applied in a poisoning incident caused by Lepiota brunneoincarnata Chodat & C. Martín ingestion.

Direct analysis of lateral flow immunoassays for deoxynivalenol using electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

Lateral flow immunoassays (LFIAs) are widely used for rapid food safety screening analysis. Thanks to simplified protocols and smartphone readouts, LFIAs are expected to be increasingly used on-site, even by non-experts. As a typical follow-up in EU regulatory settings, suspect samples are sent to laboratories for confirmatory analysis by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). However, re-analysis by LC-MS/MS is laborious and time-consuming. In this work, an identification LFIA (ID-LFIA) approach followed by quadrupole-orbitrap MS or triple quadrupole MS/MS analysis is presented. As a proof of concept, a dedicated ID-LFIA strip was developed for the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON) following its initial screening by a commercial smartphone LFIA. The ID-LFIA strip can be simply immersed in the same sample extract used for the smartphone LFIA screening, and next, DON is retrieved from the monoclonal antibody with a dissociation solution consisting of methanol/ammonia. The solution thus obtained was analyzed directly in MS in order to rapidly confirm the presence of DON and any cross-reacting species. The protocol developed is capable of coping with severe ion suppression caused by LFIA buffers and nitrocellulose substrate residues. Initial analysis of blank, spiked, and incurred samples showed that the newly developed ID-LFIA-MS method was able to confirm the presence or absence of mycotoxins in the samples previously analyzed by LFIA and also differentiate between DON and DON 3-glucoside yielding the positive screening result. The concept and technique developed are envisaged to complement on-site screening and confirmation of any low molecular weight contaminant in future food control frameworks. Graphical abstract.

Extensive screening of cyclopeptide toxins in mushrooms by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole-Orbitrap mass spectrometry

A non-target screening method of cyclopeptide toxins and their analogues in mushroom was developed, using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole Orbitrap mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-Orbitrap MS) followed by mass spectrometry databases retrieval and software tools analysis for the candidate analogues. Three cyclopeptide toxins in the toxic mushroom Amanita rimosa were firstly screened without standard, and two of them were unknown analogues which were tentatively identified by the accurate masses, isotopic patterns and characteristic fragments. A validated quantitative method was performed to rapidly quantify three major cyclopeptide toxins in the Amanita rimosa sample including α-manitin, β-amanitin and phalloidin, and their contents were detected to be 4.52 mg/kg, 2.37 mg/kg and 2.53 mg/kg, respectively. The developed method has good selectivity and sensitivity for rapid and comprehensive screening the cyclopeptide toxins and their analogues in mushrooms at trace levels. Successful non-target screening of trace cyclopeptide toxin analogues will guarantee the food safety in mushrooms consumption.

Simultaneous identification and characterization of amanita toxins using liquid chromatography-photodiode array detection-ion trap and time-of-flight mass spectrometry and its applications

Rapid and accurate identification of multiple toxins for clinical diagnosis and treatment of mushroom poisoning cases is still a challenge, especially with the lack of authentic references. In this study, we developed an effective method for simultaneous identification of amanita peptide toxins by liquid chromatography coupled with photodiode array detection and ion trap time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The accuracy and selectivity of the methodology were validated through similar multiple fragmentation patterns and characteristic ions of standard α- and β-amanitin. The developed method could successfully separate and identify major toxic constituents in Amanita mushrooms. Two amatoxins and three phallotoxins were confirmed in a single run through their fragmentation patterns and characteristic ions, which can be used as diagnostic fragment ions to identify mushroom toxins in complex samples. Furthermore, the performance of the developed method was verified by using real biological samples, including plasma and urine samples collected from rats after intraperitoneal administration of toxins. Thus, the development methodology could be crucial for the accurate detection of mushroom toxins without standard references.