High-performance liquid chromatographic analysis of the mycotoxin citrinin and its application to biological fluids

Critinin is a toxic metabolite produced by several species of Penicillium and Aspergillus. Citrinin is nephrotoxic and has been implicated in disease outbreaks in animals and humans. Citrinin was resolved as a sharp peak by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chormatography on a small-particle 10μm) column by elution in 4.25 min with a phosphoric acid (0.25 nN)-acetonitrile-2-propanol solvent (55:35:10). Detection was by ultraviolet absorbance at 340 nm. The relationship between peak height and area and quantity injected was linear over a range of 2–50 ng at 340 mn and 5–200 ng at 365 nm. Retention time and peak area were highly reproducible. As little as 2–5 ng citrinin was detectable. Complete recovery of citrinin from plasma samples containing known quantities of [¹⁴C]citrinin was obtained over a range of 5–40 μg/ml by treatment of the plasma with 1 N hydrochloric acid followed by extraction with ethyl acetate. The method provides for the direct analysis of citrinin in urine and bile without prior extraction.