Preliminary studies on enniatin B1 and zearalenone in aquaculture fish from markets in Spain

Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by fungi and mainly by Fusarium spp., Aspergillus spp. and Penicillium spp (1). Fusarium spp, is known producer of emerging mycotoxins: beauvericin and enniatins (A, A1, B, B1). These mycotoxins can be found in feed for farmed fish (2) and when ingested, could arrive in the animal muscle, becoming a risk to human consumer. The European Commission defined maximum Levels (MLs) for mycotoxins in feed (3), but few data are available in literature regarding their presence in farmed fishes. The aim of this study is to investigate the presence of mycotoxins, in particular enniatin B and zearalenone, in two common species of aquaculture fish, sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) and sea bream (Sparus aurata) with a multiresidue LC-tandem MS methods. A total of 25 sea basses and 25 sea breams were randomly collected from different markets in Valencia, to simulate mean fish consumption of a Spanish consumer. The chemical analysis was performed on head, bowel and muscle samples purified and extracted using a QuEChERS technique. Our preliminary data show the occurrence of the studied compounds in samples analysed and the scattered presence of enniatin B in head, bowel and muscle with a prevalence of 46% in sea bream and 36% in sea bass (concentration range 0.13-26.81 µg g-1). Zearalenone was found in sea bream head and bowel with a prevalence of 7.0 % (concentration range 2.26-6.83 µg g-1) and 13.8% (concentration range 1.04-8.75 µg g-1) respectively and in sea bass head with a prevalence of 4.0% (concentration range 2.38-5.15 µg g-1) and bowel (prevalence 97%; concentration range 1.22-8.33 µg g-1). These preliminary results show the presence of the studied contaminants, with a preferential localization in sea bream.