Deoxynivalenol and zearalenone in Brazilian barley destined for brewing

ABSTRACT

Barley is an important cereal worldwide. However, fungal contamination during pre and postharvest is a recurrent problem for barley production, causing a direct impact on the quality of the grains and their by-products due to spoilage and mycotoxin accumulation. The Fusarium graminearum species complex is the main contaminant during preharvest and some species can produce deoxynivalenol and zearalenone, important mycotoxins that represent a risk to human and animal health. This study evaluated the fungal diversity and the levels of DON and ZEN in barley grains produced in Brazil. The results showed high frequency (60%) of Fusariumcontamination in barley grains. Additionally, mycotoxin levels ranged from 46 to 2074 µg/kg for DON and from 74 to 556 µg/kg for ZEN. Co-occurrence of DON and ZEN was observed in 40% of the samples and 30% of barley samples had DON and ZEN levels higher than the maximum levels established by Brazilian and European legislations.

  

KEYWORDS:

• Fusarium graminearum
• mycotoxins
• fungi
• LC-MS
• cereals

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Authorship contribution statement

Caio H. T Iwase: Investigation.Methodology. Formal analysis. Writing – original draft. Karim C. Piacentini: Investigation. Methodology. Formal analysis. Nathalia C. C. Silva: Writing – review & editing. Ana Paula Rebellato: Supervision. Writing – review & editing. Liliana O. Rocha: Conceptualisation. Funding acquisition. Resources. Project administration. Supervision. Writing -review & editing.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the projects 2017/04811-4 (São Paulo Research Foundation – FAPESP), 167039/2017-2 (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development – CNPq) and finance code 001 (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel – CAPES).