Cereals are prone to fungal infection during growth, harvesting, transportation, and/or storage. As a result, cereals such as wheat grains and wheat-derived products may be contaminated with mycotoxins leading to acute and chronic health exposure. The current study investigated the presence of the mycotoxins: ochratoxin A (OTA), ochratoxin B (OTB), T-2, and HT-2 toxins in samples of wheat grains (n = 50), wheat flour (n = 50), and bread (n = 37) from the main mills in Lebanon using LC-MS/MS. Accuracy ranged from 98-100%, recoveries from 93-105%, and intraday and interday precision were 5-7% and 9-12%, respectively. The tested wheat grains, wheat flour, and bread samples did not contain detectable levels of T-2 and HT-2 toxins and OTB. Four wheat flour samples (8% of flour samples) showed positive OTA levels ranging from 0.6-3.4 μg·kg-1 with an arithmetic mean of 1.9 ± 0.2 μg·kg-1. Only one sample contained an OTA concentration greater than the limit set by the European Union (3 μg·kg-1) for wheat-derived products. This study suggests that mycotoxin contamination of wheat grains, wheat flour, and bread in Lebanon is currently not a serious public health concern. However, surveillance strategies and monitoring programs must be routinely implemented to ensure minimal mycotoxin contamination of wheat-based products.
Keywords: HT-2 toxin; Lebanon; Ochratoxin A; T-2 toxin; bread; flour; ochratoxin B; wheat.