High Performance Liquid Chromatography Assay of Cyclopiazonic Acid in Some Stored Cereals from the Agro-Ecological Zones of Nigeria

High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) with a UV detector, was employed to analyse cyclopiazonic acids (CPA) in stored maize, millet, rice, sorghum, wheat and processed cassava (garri) samples from the seven agro-ecological zones of Nigeria namely; Derived Savannah (DS), Mid Altitude (MA), Humid Forest (HF), Northern Guinea Savannah (NGS), Sahel Savannah (SS), Southern Guinea Savannah (SGS) and Sudan Savannah (SuS). CPA a neurotoxin produced by A. flavus, with an indole tetramic acid structure, has been reported to be acutely toxic with an LD50 value above 2.30 ng/kg, a specific inhibitor of Ca2+ -ATPase, and also a potent inhibitor of calcium uptake in the sarcoplasmic reticulum was found in all the samples analysed. The mean concentrations (n = 50) of CPA found were 6.783 µg/kg, 1.173 µg/kg, 1.150 µg/kg, 2.921 µg/kg, 1.481 µg/kg and 1.271 µg/kg for wheat, maize, garri, millet, sorghum and rice respectively. Wheat samples obtained from DS and SG were found to contain the highest amount of CPA with 14.501 µg/kg and 9.601 µg/kg respectively. The recommended acceptable daily intake (ADI) of CPA has been set for 10 µg/kg/day or ≈ 700 and ˃1000 µg/kg/day for human and animal respectively. All samples (except for wheat samples from DS) collected across the seven agro-ecological zones are less than the recommended ADI by the International Safety and Compliance Agency, USA. Keywords: Cyclopiazonic Acid (CPA), Stored Cereals, High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Agro-ecological zones.