Stability Studies of Ricin, Staphyloccocal Enterotoxin B and Trichothecene Mycotoxins on Office Matrices

Abstract

With the emerging threat from biotoxins, we study the fate of three biological warfare agents namely ricin, staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) and T-2 mycotoxin in an indoor office environment. Based on the principle of amine specific isobaric tagging (i.e. iTRAQ reagents) as well as the use of nano-flow liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, we describe here a new quantitative strategy that looks into the stability profiles of staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) and ricin over 170 hours on carpet and parquet. We have shown that the study of SEB and ricin with absolute quantitation is feasible by amine isobaric tagging and analysis with nano-flow liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (nanoLC-MS). Both protein toxins were more stable on parquet than carpet with ~20% to 25% toxin remaining on carpet. The stability profile of T-2 toxin on carpet and parquet was studied using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) based on selected ion monitoring. The stability profile of T-2 toxin was showed to be twice as stable on carpet as compared to parquet under indoor conditions up to 7 days. The non-protein toxin as well as protein toxins behave differently on different matrices and degrade to different extents.