Abstract: High performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) has been adopted to set up a method for detecting deoxynivalenol (DON), deoxynivalenol-3-glucoside (D3G), 3-acetyldeoxynivalenol (3ADON) and 15-acetyldeoxynivalenol (15ADON) in cereals and their products, such as wheat flour, noodles, rice and corn grit. Samples were extracted with acetonitrile and the extract was degreased with n-hexane and cleaned up on a solid-phase extraction (SPE) column prior to being detected by HPLC-MS/MS. The quantitation was performed using an external standard method. The method was optimized and validated to meet the requirements for the detection of grains and their products. Furthermore, we analyzed the pattern of contamination of the four mycotoxins in 96 samples of cereals and their products. The results showed that 15ADON was not detected in any sample and 3ADON was detected in only one sample. Both DON and D3G were found in many samples. The detection rate of DON was higher than that of D3G, and it was the highest in noodles. In addition, we found a positive correlation between the contents of D3G and DON. The D3G/DON ratio was generally around 30%. The major mycotoxin in all types of samples was DON, of which noodles were the most contaminated.

Key words: cereals and their products, high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, deoxynivalenol, derivatives, contamination pattern