Feasibility study for the development of new Reference Materials for mycotoxin analysis in cereals

This paper reports a feasibility study for the development of new Reference Materials (RMs) for mycotoxin analysis in cereals. In particular, different batches were prepared starting from lots of un-contaminated durum wheat grains, durum wheat flour, soft wheat grains, and soft wheat flour. Then, an aliquot of each raw material was artificially inoculated with Fusarium graminearum, so as to obtain DON and Ac-DON contamination. By mixing in different ratio the mycotoxin contaminated materials and the un-contaminated materials, test batches of (durum and soft) wheat grains and flour at three different levels of DON and Ac-DON (zero level, low level, high level) have been developed. Afterwards the characterization of the materials was carried out and stability and homogeneity studies have been started.