Simultaneous determination of fumonisins B₁ and B₂ in traditional Chinese medicines by high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

A rapid and sensitive analytical method was developed for the simultaneous determination of fumonisins B₁ and B₂ in traditional Chinese medicines by HPLC-MS/MS.  The detection limits for fumonisins B₁ and B₂ were 0.25 ng·mL⁻¹ corresponding to 2 µg·kg⁻¹ in samples.  Recoveries from different samples spiked with fumonisins B₁ and B₂ at levels ranging from 0.2 to 3 mg·kg⁻¹ were 84.0%−96.1% and 86.3%−99.3%, respectively.  Among the total of 34 samples purchased from local markets, ten samples of which were visibly moldy samples due to inappropriate storage, and 24 were normal samples.  The results showed that 6 of the visibly moldy samples and 5 of the normal samples were contaminated with total fumonisins at levels ranging 82.4−2349 µg·kg⁻¹ and 102−729 µg·kg⁻¹, respectively.