International recognition of an investigation on contaminants in food

Irene Vega

This international meeting seeks to be a meeting point for all those researchers who work on the development of analytical applications with liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry techniques, with the main objective of sharing new research, advances and applications. These techniques are used as tools for the control and quantification of organic pollutants that guarantee environmental and food safety.

The event, held in Ottawa (Ontario, Canada) and in virtual mode on October 14 and 15, has had 8 invited presentations, 18 oral communications and 22 poster communications, including the one presented by Natalia Casado Navas, representing of the GQAA-MAF research group (Research Group on Analytical Chemistry Applied to the Environment, Food and Drugs), directed by Professor Isabel Sierra. The oral communication entitled "Green analytical methodology to monitor pyrrolizidine alkaloids in aromatic herbs: a miniaturized and modified QuEChERS extraction coupled to UHPLC-IT-MS/MS determination” has received the award for the best oral communication in the category of researchers sponsored by Waters Corporation. This work has been carried out by Natalia Casado, Sergio Izcara, Sonia Morante-Zarcero, Damián Pérez-Quintanilla and Isabel Sierra.

Novel analytical methods to control the presence of contaminants in food

The internationally recognized work exposes the problem that currently exists with pyrrolizidine alkaloids, natural toxins produced by certain plants that can reach the consumer through different routes (contamination in harvesting, animal feed, horizontal transfer through farmland , etc.), whose intake can cause long-term liver and lung damage, as well as being potentially carcinogenic and genotoxic compounds. In fact, in recent years there have been a large number of food alerts about the presence of these toxins in high concentrations in a wide variety of food products, of which spices and aromatic herbs stand out. "Our work has focused on the development of analytical methods that help control the presence of these contaminants in food, based on microextraction techniques that comply with the principles of green chemistry (minimum use of organic solvents and small amounts of sample ), as well as its analysis with powerful instrumental techniques such as ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry”, explains Professor Isabel Sierra.

With the method developed, it has been possible to determine the presence of the 21 pyrrolizidine alkaloids required to be controlled by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) in different food matrices, such as some aromatic herbs (rosemary, basil, thyme and Provencal herbs). After analyzing the samples, the scientific team has been able to verify that all the aromatic herbs were contaminated with these alkaloids and that two samples of thyme exceeded the maximum concentration limits established in the regulation (400 µg/Kg of sample).

The results of this work highlight the importance of developing analytical strategies to identify and control the presence of these contaminants in food to ensure consumer safety. This research is funded by the EVALKALIM project (RTI2018-094558-B-I00), whose principal investigator is Dr. Isabel Sierra.

Image: scheme of the method developed by the GQAA-MAF research group