Degree
Master of Science
Program
Chemistry
Supervisor
Dr. Mark Sumarah
2nd Supervisor
Dr. Ken Yeung
Joint Supervisor
Abstract
Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by fungi, which are harmful to humans and/or animals. Alternaria is a common fungal plant pathogen that can produce mycotoxins in agricultural commodities, such as processed wheat products, and fruit juices. Liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) is commonly used for the detection, characterization and quantitation of mycotoxins in agricultural products. Canadian Alternaria species were assessed to provide a risk assessment of their secondary metabolites in agricultural products by describing their global metabolome data obtained from the Orbitrap LC-MS instrument. Combination of this high mass accuracy data with post data-acquisition analysis techniques resulted in the discovery of new conjugated mycotoxins and secondary metabolites produced by Canadian species of Alternaria.
Data independent acquisition-digital archiving (DIA-DA) was applied as a non-targeted approach for metabolomic profiling of naturally-contaminated silage. DIA-DA allowed for high quality retrospective sample analysis of high resolution LC-MS data with high analyte selectivity.
Recommended Citation
Kelman, Megan J., "Investigating mycotoxins and secondary metabolites in Canadian agricultural commodities using high-resolution mass spectrometry" (2016). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 4144.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/4144