The contamination of foods and animal feeds with trichothecene mycotoxins is a growing concern for human and animal health. As such, large quantities of pure trichothecene mycotoxins are necessary for food safety monitoring and toxicological research. A new and effective method for the purification of trichothecene mycotoxins from a marine fungus, Fusarium sp. LS68, is described herein. Preparative high-speed countercurrent chromatography (HSCCC) was utilized for the scalable isolation and purification of four trichothecene mycotoxins for the first time in stepwise elution mode, with a biphasic solvent system composed of hexanes-EtOAc-CH₃OH-H₂O (6:4:5:5, v/v/v/v) and (8.5:1.5:5:5,v/v/v/v). This preparative HSCCC separation was performed on 200 mg of crude sample to yield four trichothecene mycotoxins, roridin E (1), roridin E acetate (2), verrucarin L acetate (3), and verrucarin J (4) in a single run, with each of >98% purity. These compounds were identified by MS, ¹H NMR, 13C NMR, and polarimetry. The results demonstrate an efficient HSCCC method for the separation of trichothecene mycotoxins, which can be utilized to produce pure commercial and research standards.
Keywords: high-speed countercurrent chromatography; preparative separation; roridin; stepwise elution; trichothecene mycotoxins; verrucarin.