title: Determination of ochratoxin A in domestic and imported beers in italy by immunoaffinity clean-up and liquid chromatography.
abstract: A method first developed to quantify ochratoxin A in wine has been applied to the analysis of domestic and imported beers in Italy. The method uses commercial immunoaffinity columns for clean-up and high-performance liquid chromatography for quantification of the toxin. Beer was degassed, then diluted with a polyethylene glycol-sodium hydrogencarbonate solution and applied to an OchraTest immunoaffinity column. Ochratoxin A was eluted from the immunoaffinity column with methanol and quantified by reversed-phase HPLC with fluorometric detector. Average recoveries of ochratoxin A from blank beer spiked at levels from 0.04 to 1.0 ng/ml ranged from 93.8% to 100.4%, with relative standard deviations between 3.3% and 5.7%. The detection limit was 0.01 ng/ml based on a signal-to-noise ratio of 3:1. The analysis of 61 samples of domestic (10) and imported (51) beers showed ochratoxin A levels ranging from <0.01 to 0.135 ng/ml with an incidence of contamination of 50% and no substantial difference between strong and pale beers.
authors.affiliation: Istituto Tossine e Micotossine da Parassiti Vegetali, CNR, Bari, Italy. visconti@area.ba.cnr.it
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Visconti
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pascale
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Centonze
mesh_terms: D001515:Beer / Q000032:analysis*; D002846:Chromatography, Affinity / Q000379:methods*; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D009183:Mycotoxins / Q000032:analysis*; D009793:Ochratoxins / Q000032:analysis*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence
chemical_list: D009183:Mycotoxins; D009793:Ochratoxins; C025589:ochratoxin A