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Development of a corn flour certified reference material for the accurate determination of zearalenone

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Abstract

A certified reference material (CRM, KRISS 108-01-002) for zearalenone in corn flour was developed to assure reliable and accurate measurements in testing laboratories. Commercially available corn flour underwent freeze-drying, pulverization, sieving, and homogenization. The final product was packed in amber bottles, approximately 14 g per unit, and preserved at –70 °C. 13C18-Zearalenone was used as an internal standard (IS) for the certification of zearalenone by isotope-dilution liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (ID-LC‒MS/MS) and for the analysis of α-zearalenol, β-zearalenol, and zearalanone by LC‒MS/MS. The prepared CRM was sufficiently homogeneous, as the among-unit relative standard deviation for each mycotoxin ranged from 2.2 to 5.7 %. Additionally, the stability of the mycotoxins in the CRM was evaluated under different temperature conditions and scheduled test periods, including storage at −70°C, −20°C, and 4°C and room temperature for up to 12 months, 6 months, and 1 month, respectively. The content of each target mycotoxin in the CRM remained stable throughout the monitoring period at each temperature. Zearalenone content (153.6 ± 8.0 µg/kg) was assigned as the certified value. Meanwhile, the contents of α-zearalenol (1.30 ± 0.17 µg/kg), β-zearalenol (4.75 ± 0.33 µg/kg), and zearalanone (2.09 ± 0.16 µg/kg) were provided as informative values.

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Funding

This study was supported by the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science under the project “Establishing measurement standards for organic analysis” (Grant no. 22011072). The funding source had no further detailed involvement in this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Organic Metrology Group, Division of Chemical and Material Metrology, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Daejeon, 34113, South Korea

    Yared Getachew Lijalem, Mohamed A. Gab-Allah, Hyeonwoo Yu, Kihwan Choi & Byungjoo Kim

  2. Department of Bio-Analytical Science, University of Science and Technology, Daejeon, 34113, South Korea

    Yared Getachew Lijalem, Mohamed A. Gab-Allah, Hyeonwoo Yu & Byungjoo Kim

  3. National Metrology Institute of Ethiopia, P. O. Box: 5722, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Yared Getachew Lijalem

  4. Reference Materials Lab, National Institute of Standards, Tersa St, Haram, P. O. Box: 136, Giza, 12211, Egypt

    Mohamed A. Gab-Allah

  5. Graduate School of Analytical Science and Technology, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, 34134, South Korea

    Kihwan Choi

Authors
  1. Yared Getachew Lijalem
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  2. Mohamed A. Gab-Allah
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Contributions

Yared Getachew Lijalem: Methodology; investigation; data curation; formal analysis; writing, original draft; writing, review and editing

Mohamed A. Gab-Allah: Methodology, investigation.

Hyeonwoo Yu: Methodology, investigation.

Kihwan Choi: Conceptualization, resources, supervision, investigation, data curation, formal analysis, writing—review and editing

Byungjoo Kim: Conceptualization, project administration, supervision, investigation, data curation, formal analysis, writing—review and editing

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Correspondence to Kihwan Choi or Byungjoo Kim.

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Lijalem, Y.G., Gab-Allah, M.A., Yu, H. et al. Development of a corn flour certified reference material for the accurate determination of zearalenone. Anal Bioanal Chem 416, 3173–3183 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-024-05265-1

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