Abstract
Deoxynivalenol (DON) and nivalenol (NIV), which are produced by Fusarium fungi as secondary metabolite, are among the mycotoxins known as trichothecenes and they naturally occur in cereal grains of bread making wheat. In this study, contamination levels of these mycotoxins in various wheat flour samples containing domestic flour used for the mass production of bread and related products were collected and analyzed in Japan. Samples of flour and bread were collected from nine prefectures, and their trichothecene levels were measured by a validated High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry system. The average concentrations of DON and NIV in flour samples collected were 31.3 ± 28.9 and 8.5 ± 3.7 μg/kg, whereas those in bread samples were 8.6 ± 5.1 μg/kg and 3.4 ± 2.0 μg/kg, respectively. These results suggest that the percentage of DON and NIV remaining after converting flour into bread using industrial equipment and baking yeast were estimated as approximately 74.4 and 65.8 %, respectively.
