In this study, twenty of the most common Fusarium species were molecularly characterized and inoculated on potato dextrose agar (PDA), rice and maize medium, where thirty three targeted mycotoxins, which might be the secondary metabolites of the identified fungal species, were detected by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Statistical analysis was performed with principal component analysis (PCA) to characterize the mycotoxin profiles for the twenty fungi, suggesting that these fungi species could be discriminated and divided into three groups as follows. Group I, the fusaric acid producers, were defined into two subgroups, namely subgroup I as producers of fusaric acid and fumonisins, comprising of F. proliferatum, F. verticillioides, F. fujikuroi and F. solani, and subgroup II considered to only produce fusaric acid, including F. temperatum, F. subglutinans, F. musae, F. tricinctum, F. oxysporum, F. equiseti, F. sacchari, F. concentricum, F. andiyazi. Group II, as type A trichothecenes producers, included F. langsethiae, F. sporotrichioides, F. polyphialidicum, while Group III were found to mainly produce type B trichothecenes, comprising of F. culmorum, F. poae, F. meridionale and F. graminearum. A comprehensive picture, which presents the mycotoxin-producing patterns by the selected fungal species in various matrices, is obtained for the first time, and thus from an application point of view, provides key information to explore mycotoxigenic potentials of Fusarium species and forecast the Fusarium infestation/mycotoxins contamination.

As a filamentous and spoilage fungus, Alternaria spp. can not only infect processing tomatoes, but also produce a variety of mycotoxins which harm the health of human beings. To explore the production of Alternaria toxins in processing tomatoes during growth and storage, four main Alternaria toxins and four conjugated toxins were detected by ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) and ultra-performance liquid chromatography-ion mobility quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-IMS QToF MS) in processing tomatoes on different days after being inoculated with A. alternata. The results show that the content of Alternaria toxins in an in vivo assay is higher than that under field conditions. Tenuazonic acid (TeA) is the predominant toxin detected in the field (205.86~41,389.19 μg/kg) and in vivo (7.64~526,986.37 μg/kg) experiments, and the second-most abundant toxin is alternariol (AOH). In addition, a small quantity of conjugated toxins, AOH-9-glucoside (AOH-9-Glc) and alternariol monomethyl ether-3-glucoside (AME-3-Glc), were screened in the in vivo experiment. This is the first time the potential of Alternaria toxins produced in tomatoes during the harvest period has been studied in order to provide data for the prevention and control of Alternaria toxins.

The determination of zearalenone (ZEN) and its derivatives as biomarkers in animal tissues or organs plays an important role in mycotoxin monitoring and can promote effective exposure assessment. A liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for the simultaneous quantification of nine ZEN-like mycotoxins, including three glucuronides in different pig tissues (heart, liver, spleen and muscle) was developed and validated in this study. Tissue samples were extracted using a quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe (QuEChERS) extraction and clean-up procedure, and analyzed by LC-MS/MS in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. Dynamic linear ranges for each target analyte were determined with R² between 0.916 and 0.999. The LODs of the six ZENs were achieved in the range of 0.5–1 ng/g and the LOQs varied from 1 ng/g to 2 ng/g. The satisfying intra-day and inter-day reproducibility (both RSD_r and RSD_R < 20%) indicated a good stability of this method. The recoveries of the nine target analytes were in the range of 70–110%. The validation results showed that this LC-MS/MS method coupled with QuEChERS sample pretreatment is effective and suitable for the simultaneous quantitation of ZEN metabolites in pigs. It has been applied to analysis of the pig tissues in this research and can be also adapted for samples in the mycotoxin research field.