COMPARATIVE-ASSESSMENT OF FUMONISIN IN GRAIN-BASED FOODS BY ELISA, GC-MS, AND HPLC

Seventy-one (71) food samples were analyzed for the mycotoxin fumonisin by a monoclonal antibody based competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Fumonisins were detected primarily in corn-based products with 7/12, 2/2 and 1/3 and 1/7 yellow cornmeal, blue cornmeal, corn muffin mix, and mixed grain cereal samples yielding positive results, respectively. When the positive samples and randomly selected negative samples were assessed by other methods, correlations (r values) between ELISA and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), ELISA and high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) and GC-MS and HPLC were 0.478 (p < 0.05), 0.512 (p < 0.05), and 0.946 (p < 0.01), respectively. The results suggested that although the immunoassay could be used for screening of fumonisin in food samples, higher estimates were attained by ELISA than by the other two methods particularly in the more contaminated samples. These observations may result from differences in sample; preparation among the methods or because of the presence of structurally related compounds in extracts that are detectable by ELISA but not the other two methods.