Pressurized liquid extraction coupled to liquid chromatography for the analysis of ochratoxin A in breakfast and infants cereals from Morocco

A sensitive and reliable method using pressurized liquid extraction (PLE) and liquid chromatography (LC) has been developed for the analysis of ochratoxin A (OTA) in breakfast and infants cereals. Influence of several extraction solvents that affect PLE efficiency was studied. The selected PLE operating method was: 10 g of sample was packed into 22 ml stainless-steel cell and OTA was extracted with acetonitrile/water (80:20) at 40 °C, 34 atm in one cycle of 5 min at 60% flush. The mean recovery of OTA was 82 ± 4 at fortification level of 3 ng/g OTA. The limit of quantification (LOQ) of OTA was 0.25 ng/g. The proposed method was successfully applied to the analysis of 68 samples of breakfast and infants cereals products collected from different supermarkets and pharmacies in Rabat. Results showed that all analyzed infant cereals were free of OTA contamination. However, four samples of breakfast cereals were contaminated with OTA. Levels of OTA in positive samples ranged between 5.1 and 224.6 ng/g. All positive samples (5.8% of total samples) were above the maximum level set by EU regulations for OTA in cereal derivatives products.