Toxicological analysis of satratoxins, the main toxins in the mushroom Trichoderma cornu-damae, in human serum and mushroom samples by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec> <jats:title>Purpose</jats:title> <jats:p>Many poisoning cases involving the deadly toxic mushroom <jats:italic>Trichoderma cornu-damae</jats:italic> have been reported, but there are very few reports on toxicological analysis of the poisoning. In this study, a simple and sensitive method was developed for detecting and quantifying satratoxins, which are the main toxins found in <jats:italic>T. cornu-damae</jats:italic>, in human serum and mushroom samples.</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Methods</jats:title> <jats:p>The four main toxins, namely, satratoxin H and its 12′-acetate, 13′-acetate and 12′,13′-diacetate, were isolated from <jats:italic>T. cornu-damae</jats:italic> and used as analytical standards. These standards were spiked into human serum and effective methods were developed for extraction and detection/quantification using liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS). Quantification of satratoxins in <jats:italic>T. cornu-damae</jats:italic> samples was performed by the standard addition method.</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Results</jats:title> <jats:p>Although satratoxins, which have neutral terpene structures, showed very low sensitivities in conventional LC–MS/MS analysis, they could be detected with enough sensitivity by our developed method. In human serum, the limit of detection was 0.1 ng/mL and the limit of quantification was 1 ng/mL for all four satratoxins. The recovery rate ranged from 70.5 to 86.6%, and the coefficients of determination for calibration curves were > 0.999. Satratoxins in <jats:italic>T. cornu-damae</jats:italic> samples were also well detected and quantified with coefficients of determination for calibration curves of > 0.997 and intraday/interday precision (relative standard deviation) ranging from 2.98 to 10.3%.</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title> <jats:p>To our knowledge, this is the first report of toxicological analysis of satratoxins using analytical standards.</jats:p> </jats:sec>