Occurrence of mycotoxins in refrigerated pizza dough and risk assessment of exposure for the Spanish population

- First report on the presence of different mycotoxins in refrigerated pizza dough samples commercialized in Spain.
- The presence of ZEA, ENA1, ENB and ENB1 was detected in 100% of the sample.
- ZEA and AFs exceed the legislated limits in some samples.
- The exposure of the Spanish population to the mycotoxins found in the samples was evaluated.
- In none of the cases studied, the exposure assessed to the detected mycotoxins exceeded the TDI values.

Mycotoxins are toxic metabolites produced by filamentous fungi, as Aspergillus, Penicillium and Fusarium. The first objective of this research was to study the presence of mycotoxins in 60 samples of refrigerated pizza dough, by extraction with methanol and determination by liquid chromatography associated with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Then, the estimated dietary intakes (EDIs) of these mycotoxins, among the Spanish population, was calculated and the health risk assessment was performed, comparing the EDIs data with the tolerable daily intake values (TDIs). The mycotoxins detected in the analyzed samples were aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), aflatoxin B2 (AFB2), aflatoxin G1 (AFG1), zearalenone (ZEA), enniatin A (ENA), enniatin A1 (ENA1), enniatin (ENB), enniatin B1 (ENB1) and BEA (beauvericin) with average concentration of the positive samples of 4.09 μg/kg, 0.50 μg/kg, 0.79 μg/kg, 77.78 μg/kg, 14.96 μg/kg, 4.54 μg/kg, 3.37 μg/kg, 1.69 μg/kg and 22.39 μg/kg, respectively. The presence of ZEA, ENA1, ENB and ENB1 was detected in 100% of the samples, AFB2 in 32%, AFB1 in 23%, ENA in 8% and BEA in 3%. Twelve percent of the samples contaminated with AFB1 and 12% of the doughs contaminated with ZEA exceeded the EU legislated maximum limits. The dietary intakes were estimated considering three different age groups of population, and the EDIs calculated for the mycotoxins detected in the samples were all below the established TDI.