Efficacy of different C18 HPLC analytical columns in the analysis of Fumonisins B1 and B2 in different matrices

Fumonisins B1 and B2 are carcinogenic and commonly contaminate corn and corn-based products. Analysis of such toxins using C18 HPLC column is officially accredited but still unknown if all column types can effectively separate FB1 and FB2 or not. The present study evaluated the efficiency of 5 analytical columns with different dimensions, particle sizes, and porosities to determine these toxins in both agar cultures of Fusarium verticillioides and cornflakes. Interestingly, the traditional column 150mm of length with 5µm porous particles had close retention times to those of the shortfused core column 75mm of length with 2.7 µm reflecting in time and solvents saving. Using Sep-Pack C18 for clean-up played an important role in enhancement the limit of quantification (LOQ) for cornflake samples (5-13.7 and 16.1-39 µg kg-1 for FB1 and FB2, respectively). However, it was relatively higher for fungal culture samples that were not passed through the cleaning-up step (11.5-16 and 28.1-46.3 µg kg-1 for FB1 and FB2, respectively). Overall, the lowest LOQ was obtained using the shorter fused core column. Finally, using such clean-up in the extraction of FB1 and FB2 from spiked cornflakes samples gave good recoveries (>80%) using all tested columns.