Natural toxins testing

Natural toxins are synthesized by bacteria, fungi, plants, or animals and are classified into different categories based on the organisms that produce them. Various of these biotoxins can contaminate food at different stages of production, from cultivation and harvesting to processing and distribution. International organizations and regulatory bodies share information and harmonize standards to monitor and address global trends in natural toxin contamination that may impact food safety. Marine biotoxins, mushroom toxins and different classes of alkaloids like pyrrolizidine alkaloids and tropane alkaloids are among the most tested subgroups of natural toxins in food safety that are detected with LC-MS.

SCIEX provides proven and robust technologies and support for fast and accurate detection of natural toxins. The SCIEX Turbo V ion source design provides high ionization efficiency and outstanding contamination resistance, ensuring high sensitivity, stability and reproducibility during routine analysis of large batches of samples. Challenging isomer separation can be overcome with optional ion-mobility technology for triple quadrupole systems.

Countries have specific regulations for food safety that can differ. Some selected regulations are:

Pyrrolizidine alkaloids are a collection of several isomeric substances, some of which cannot be separated by chromatography or mass spectrometry alone. A method has been developed for the sensitive quantification of pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which are relevant for the analysis of herbal and tea extracts, using SelexION Technology to distinguish between isomeric compounds.