Molecularly Imprinted Polymers as Specific Adsorbents for Zearalenone Produced by Precipitation Polymerization and Applied to Mycotoxin Production

In this work, molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) using the mycotoxin zearalenone (ZEA) as template were first synthesized via precipitation polymerization and then applied as specific adsorbents in molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction (MISPE) cartridges. The MISPE procedure was optimized with 3 mL of acetonitrile for preconditioning, 1 mL of acetonitrile:H ₂O (60:40) for loading, 1 mL of acetonitrile:H ₂O (30:70), and 3 mL of methanol:acetic acid (95:5) for elution. The obtained MIPs showed high selectivity of 96.9% towards ZEA, and low cross-reactivity (1-20%) to other Fusarium mycotoxins including deoxynivalenol, nivalenol, HT-2 toxin and T-2 toxin. The cross-reactivity to fumonisin B ₁ amounted to 61%. The MISPE was applied for enrichment of ZEA, which was produced by Fusarium graminearum strains. An enrichment factor above 50 was reached. Recoveries of 1 μg/mL were between 90.8% and 99.6%. A small amount of ZEA was produced by 9 F. graminearum strains with a maximum of 13 μg, then purified by the developed MISPE and analyzed by LC-MS/MS.