DETERMINATION OF ALTERNARIOL IN TOMATO PASTE USING SOLID-PHASE EXTRACTION AND HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY WITH FLUORESCENCE DETECTION

Alternaria spp. produce a wide variety of toxic metabolites with diffe rent chemical structures. Tomato products have been considered a likel y source of Alternaria toxins in the human diet because Alternaria is an important spoilage mold of tomatoes. A new method for the determina tion of these mycotoxins in tomato paste, involving solid phase cartri dges for extraction before HPLC fluorescence detection with a reversed phase column and isocratic elution, was developed. The method was dem onstrated to be linear in the range 5.2-196 ppb of alternariol (AOH) i n tomato paste. Good recoveries were obtained for AOH at all levels as sayed (minimum 77.2%). The detection limit of the AOH toxin in real sa mples of tomato paste was low, 1.93 ppb, The precision of the method w as demonstrated with a good repeatability (RSD = 2.98%) and reproducib ility (RSD = 9.35%).