Survey of the occurrence of Aflatoxin M1 in ovine milk by HPLC and its confirmation by MS

✍ Scribed by Matteo Bognanno; Luca La Fauci; Alberto Ritieni; Alessio Tafuri; Antonino De Lorenzo; Pietro Micari; Laura Di Renzo; Salvatore Ciappellano; Virginia Sarullo; Fabio Galvano

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 965 KB
• Volume: 50
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1613-4125
• DOI: 10.1002/mnfr.200500224

✦ Synopsis

During the period of October -July 2000, 240 samples of dairy ewes milk, obtained from farms of Enna (Sicily, Italy), were checked for Aflatoxin M 1 (AFM 1 ) by HPLC using a fluorimetric detector. The limit of detection and the limit of quantification were 250 ng/L for AFM 1 . All the positive milk samples for AFM 1 were confirmed by LC-MS. AFM 1 was detected in 81% of milk samples, ranging from 2 to 108 ng/L. Three samples were over the legal limits (50 ng/L). Mean contamination of samples obtained from stabulated ewes was higher than that from grazing ewes (35.27 vs. 12.47 ng/L). Furthermore, samples collected in the period September -October showed higher contamination than samples collected during the other months (42.68 vs. 10.55 ng/L). Both differences are related to the administration of compound feed. Based on current toxicological knowledge we concluded that the AFM 1 contamination levels recorded in ewe milk did not present a serious human health hazard. However, as ewe milk is exclusively used to produce cheese due to its higher protein content, and also considering the preferential binding of AFM 1 to casein during coagulation of milk, a potentially high concentration effect could occur, thus the surveillance of contamination levels should be more continuous and widespread.