Scientists Bahar Nakhjavan, Nighat Sami Ahmed and Maryam Khosravifard with the California Department of Food & Agriculture's (CDFA) Center for Analytical Chemistry (CAC) recently published a paper in the academic journal Toxins after developing an improved method to test for mycotoxins in feed, according to an announcement from CDFA.

The article, “Development of an Improved Method of Sample Extraction & Quantitation of Multi-Mycotoxin in Feed by LC-MS/MS,” details their research of evaluating the three most popular sample preparation techniques for determining mycotoxins and then selecting the best method and optimizing it, CDFA said.

Mycotoxins are the most common contaminants in agricultural crops and are produced by several species of mold and fungi. During growth, maturity, harvest, storage and processing of food and animal feed products, the fungi produce mycotoxins and other secondary metabolites. Mycotoxin-contaminated food and feed threaten human and animal health, even at very low concentrations.

Nakhjavan, Ahmed and Khosravifard work in the CAC Environmental Safety Laboratory. Testing for mycotoxins in food and animal feed in the Regulatory Analysis Laboratory is part of their job of preventing people, livestock and poultry in California from consuming contaminated food and feed, CDFA said.

CAC uses state-of-the-art equipment and processes to test fruits, vegetables, nuts, animal feed, milk, water and air to ensure that pesticide and chemical levels are within the safety range established by national and international standards. Additional CAC staff who contributed to the published paper include Sally Henandez, Jose Salazar and Sarva Balachandra.