Testing Cannabis Plant Material for Mycotoxins

Testing Cannabis Plant Material for Mycotoxins

Professor DeBacco


Research Article
Nie, B., Henion, J., & Ryona, I. (2019). The role of mass spectrometry in the cannabis industry. Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, 30(5), 719-730.
https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...

Mycotoxins Come From Mold
Mycotoxins are toxic secondary metabolites of mold that can proliferate in the same environment that is supportive for cannabis growth.
Mycotoxins are a known risk within the food safety industry
They are a concern in cannabis plants because of the suspected carcinogens causing acute and chronic toxicity



Mycotoxin Health Threat
Mycotoxins have been linked to kidney and liver damage, reproductive disorders, and immune suppression.
Cannabis material can also be contaminated with mycotoxins during transportation, storage, and processing.
Given the known health risks associated with exposure to these mycotoxins testing is an important safety measure for consumers.



Aflatoxins and Others…
Particularly dangerous are the aflatoxins, a type of mycotoxin produced by Aspergillus flavus a fungal species, which are potent carcinogens.
Aspergillus species (A. flavus, A. parasiticus) produce aflatoxins in warm and humid conditions—optimally 33 °C (91.4 °F), and 0.99 water activity.
Even acute exposure can be life threatening if the dose of aflatoxin is large enough, as the resultant aflatoxicosis can cause severe liver failure.
Aflatoxin B1 is considered the most toxic, but the presence of B2, G1, and G2 must also be considered as they result from decaying vegetation and soils when warm, moist conditions exist.
There are regulations now that set limits on the allowable levels of these toxins in foods.



World Health Organization
According to a food safety digest from the World Health Organization, consumption of a food or product containing more than 1 mg/kg (1 part per million) of aflatoxin can be enough to lead to life-threatening aflatoxicosis and liver failure.
Alternatively, sustained exposure to lower dosages, on the order of 20-120 μg/kg daily for a period of 1-3 weeks, of aflatoxin B1 specifically can also be acutely toxic and potentially lethal.



Screening Cannabis for Mycotoxins
Both recreational and medicinal cannabis must now be screened for mycotoxins derived from microbial contamination.`
This can be done by a number of analytical techniques, but due to the chemical complexity of the sample extracts and the polar and/or labile nature of some mycotoxins, they are good candidates for LC/MS and LC/MS/MS analysis



Safety Requirements
State testing regulations typically have a maximum allowable limit of 20 μg/kg of mycotoxin detected on a sample. However, there is variation in exactly how this limit is applied between states.
For example, the Illinois Department of Agriculture requires each of the five main mycotoxins to separately be under the limit of less than 20 μg/kg, but in Nevada and California, the total sum of detectable aflatoxins B1, B2, G1, and G2 combined must be under 20 μg/kg, with ochratoxin A also separately testing out as less than 20 μg/kg.

New Mexico’s Department of Health enforces one of the tightest restrictions on mycotoxin presence, requiring the collective amounts of all five main mycotoxins to sum to less than 20 μg/kg.




Link to Lecture Slides: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11LK8...

*Due to the description character limit the full work cited for "Testing Cannabis Plant Material for Mycotoxins" can be viewed at... https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D15y...