Screening, new directions in portability with mass spectrometry

Authors: Maragos, Chris

Submitted to: Book Chapter
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/6/2024
Publication Date: 6/30/2025
Citation: Maragos, C.M. 2025. Screening, new directions in portability with mass spectrometry. Book Chapter. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004724969.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004724969

Interpretive Summary: Mycotoxins are a broad class of naturally occurring compounds that have toxic effects on humans, domestic animals, and crops. They are produced naturally by fungi growing in the field or on commodities after harvest. Awareness of their potential to occur in commodities and foods has resulted in methods to both screen for the presence of the toxins and to provide confirmation of their presence. This chapter is part of a book summarizing the current state-of-the art methods for detecting mycotoxins. Most modern confirmation methods use mass spectrometry and involve instruments that are large and require conditions that make them laboratory-bound. This chapter summarizes efforts to create rapid screening assays, based upon mass spectrometry, that can be performed on-site.

Technical Abstract: On-site estimation of mycotoxin content is accomplished in many ways, ranging from predictive technologies based upon changes that occur with fungal growth, to indirect measurement of the toxins by immunoassay. In contrast, the direct measurement of mycotoxins, by measuring physical properties of the toxins themselves, remains primarily confined to laboratory settings. Making direct measurements portable remains challenging due to the complex matrices involved. Recently portable scanning mass spectrometers (MS) that can scan the m/z range relevant to mycotoxins have become commercially available. Various types of portable MS instrumentation including miniaturized ionization sources, mass analyzers, and detectors have been developed and applied to a wide range of small molecules, including mycotoxins. This has raised the intriguing possibility of moving MS of mycotoxins out from traditional analytical laboratories and into on-site situations. Doing so will require coupling improvements in instrumentation with rapid and portable cleanup techniques.