Michael Sulyok

Forschungsschwerpunkt

Currently, about 300-400 substances are summarized under the term "mycotoxins" (secondary metabolites of molds that are toxic to mammals). Nevertheless, the focus of most analytical methods is on those toxins for which legal regulations are set in the EU (as well as some of their derivatives), which in total amounts to about two dozen substances. In contrast, little is known about the occurrence of the remaining toxic mold metabolites, which is not least due to the lack of suitable analytical methods.

In our group, we are trying to use the latest generation of fast-scanning mass spectrometers to develop quantitative LC-MS/MS methods that can simultaneously detect a large number of fungal metabolites. Several scientific publications have shown that the selectivity, sensitivity and robustness of modern tandem mass spectrometers allows the quantitative determination of a large number of substances in dilute crude extracts down to the sub-μg/kg range. However, this is only possible if the influence of the matrix on the ionization of the analytes (matrix effects) is well characterized, which in our view is insufficiently dealt with by common guidelines for method validation.

Focus
Method development for the quantitative analysis of a variety of fungal metabolites and selected plant toxins
Analysis of approx. 1000 (as of 10/2022. compounds in food and feed in the μg/kg range; an additional module for pesticides and veterinary medicines is available on request
Quantification is enabled by one of the world's largest collections of fungal metabolite standards
The method accuracy for the regulated mycotoxins is continuously checked by participation in proficiency tests
Application of the methodology to sample sets of national and international scientific partners