Critical assessment of determination of HT-2 and T-2 toxins by LC-MS and ELISA analytical approaches

T-2 toxin and HT-2 toxin are mycotoxins of the group of type A trichothecenes, produced by fungi of the genus Fusarium, i.e. Fusarium langsethiae, F. poae and F. sporotrichoides, which are commonly found in various cereal crops (wheat, maize, barley, oats, and rye) and food-technological products (malt, beer and bread). T-2 and HT-2 toxins often occur together in infected cereals and foods, predominantly with oat basement. The determination and monitoring of these analytes represents a very important issue from the food safety point of view. Presented study was focused on extended comparison between outcomes of T-2 and HT-2 toxins analysis in oat samples via instrumental and bioanalytical methods. Both, immunoaffinity clean up (IAC), QuEChERs extraction followed by UPLC-MS/MS and ELISA mycotoxins´ determination were conducted in order to assess the best possible analytical approach for this kind of matrix. In total, six various commercially available ELISA kits were tested. Results were compared to those obtained by UPLC-MS/MS method, for which IAC clean up and five models of QuEChERs extractions (classic- tempering 30and 60 min after water addition- 30 and 60 min after CAN addition) were applied. The significantly high overestimation of ELISA’s results was observed due to the existence of cross-reactive compounds which may interfered with applied antibodies.