Occurrence and co-occurrence of Fusarium mycotoxins in wheat grains and wheat flour from Romania

In this study, the presence of fourteen Fusarium mycotoxins, legislated by the European Union deoxynivalenol, zearalenone, HT-2 and T-2 toxins (EC/1881/2006; 2013/165/EU), or non-legislated (five trichothecens and five emerging mycotoxins), was evaluated in 31 whole unprocessed wheat samples and 35 white wheat flour samples from different areas of Romania: For this purpose, a validated multi-mycotoxins liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method was applied. Seventy three percent of the analyzed samples contained at least one mycotoxin. The highest occurrence was for enniatin B, 71% of the analyzed samples being positive (21-407 mu g kg(-1)). Regarding the legislated mycotoxins, deoxynivalenol was detected in 14% (111-1787 mu g kg(-1)) of the samples, while zearalenone was detected in 9% (51-1135 mu g kg(-1)). Only one sample was positive for neosolaniol. Concerning the co-occurrence, 42% of the samples were contaminated with two to five mycotoxins, the most frequent being the binary or tertiary combinations of enniatins. This is the first study applied to Romanian wheat grains and flour samples using a high sensitive multi-mycotoxins method, and which included also emerging mycotoxins. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.