Review: Sample Pretreatment and Detection Strategies for Aflatoxins in Foods

Aflatoxins (AFs) have strong liver and kidney toxicity, teratogenic, and carcinogenic effects. They can easily contaminate foods such as grains and oilseeds, and can easily enter the human body through the food chain, posing a huge threat to human health. There is an urgent need to establish a rapid, sensitive, and accurate analysis strategy for AFs in food to protect people’s health. However, due to the complexity of the food matrix and the extremely low content of AFs in food, efficient pre-treatment technology is needed to enrich and separate the target substances, as well as detection methods with high detection sensitivity and efficiency. This article provides an overview of recent research advances in solid-phase extraction (SPE), immunoaffinity chromatography (IAC), and field-assisted extraction techniques involving microwaves, magnetic fields, and ultrasound, with a particular focus on the application of new separation materials. In addition, the application of chromatographic, immunological, and emerging biosensing analysis strategies in the detection of AFs in food is reviewed, and the future development direction is prospected, which is expected to promote the further development of analysis and detection of food contaminants.