Inter-laboratory study of an LC-MS/MS method for simultaneous determination of deoxynivalenol and its acetylated derivatives, 3-acetyl-deoxynivalenol and 15-acetyl-deoxynivalenol in wheat.

To validate an LC-MS/MS method for simultaneous determination of deoxynivalenol (DON) and its acetylated derivatives, 3-acetyl-deoxynivalenol (3ADON) and 15-acetyl-deoxynivalenol (15ADON), in wheat using a multifunctional column, an inter-laboratory study was performed in 9 laboratories using one blank wheat sample, three spiked wheat samples (10, 50, 150 µg/kg) and one naturally contaminated wheat sample. The recoveries ranged from 98.8 to 102.6% for DON, 89.3 to 98.7% for 3ADON, and from 84.9 to 90.0% for 15ADON. The relative standard deviations for repeatability (RSDR) and reproducibility (RSDR) of DON were in the ranges of 7.2-11.3% and 9.5-22.6%, respectively. For 3ADON, the RSDR ranged from 5.3 to 9.5% and the RSDR ranged from 16.1 to 18.0%, while for 15ADON, the RSDR ranged from 6.2 to 11.2% and the RSDR ranged from 17.0 to 27.2%. The HorRat values for the three analytes ranged from 0.4 to 1.2. These results validate this method for the simultaneous determination of DON and its acetylated derivatives, 3ADON and 15ADON.