Effects of muffin processing on fumonisins from 14C-labeled toxins produced in cultured corn kernels

The persistence of fumonisins during cooking is known to be affected by several factors, including thermal degradation and the presence of various ingredients in corn-based food recipes that can react with the toxin. A method for the production of corn kernels containing C-14-fumonisins was developed. The corn kernels were colonized by Fusarium verticillioides MRC 826 and supplemented with 1.2-C-14-sodium acetate. The specific activity of C-14-FB1 produced made the study of its fate in cornmeal muffins possible. The double-extraction acetonitrile-water-methanol/immunoaffinity column/o-phthaldialdehyde high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was used to determine FB1 levels in cornmeal muffins. Reductions in FB1 levels in muffins spiked with C-14-labeled and unlabeled FB1 (43 and 48%, respectively) were similar, indicating that the extraction method was efficient and consistent with previous reports. However, with the labeled corn kernel material, recovery levels based on the C-14 counts for the eluate from an immunoaffinity column were much higher (90%). This finding indicates that some fumonisin-related compounds other than FB1 that were present in the cornmeal were recognized by the antibodies but not by the HPLC method.