Dietary risk assessment of 13 strobilurin and triazole fungicide residues in mangoes by high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

The spraying of fungicides on mangoes near harvest time to reduce occurrence of diseases could result in the pesticide residues in harvested products. To explore the potential health risk for subgroups in China, a residue analytical method was developed by high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) for simultaneous determination of 13 strobilurin and triazole fungicides in mango. Based on the residue data, the long-term and short-term dietary exposure risk assessment to adults and children in China was conducted by "point estimates" method. The linearity of 13 fungicides was excellent in the range of 1-100 μg/L, with the coefficients of determination (R²) above 0.9994. The limit of quantification (LOQ) was 5 μg/kg. The average recoveries were 76%-122% at 5 spiked levels, with the relative standard deviation (RSD) of 0.7%-14%. The residue results of the mango samples from the main producing areas and consumer cities in China indicated that the fungicides with high detection rates were pyraclostrobin (22.6%), azoxystrobin (18.5%) and difenoconazole (15.5%). The 50^th and 97.5^th percentile residue levels were used to calculate the contribution rate of the fungicides to the long-term and short-term dietary intake risks, respectively. The results demonstrated that the contribution rates of 13 fungicides in mango to the long-term dietary risk of adults and children were 0.01%-0.5% and 0.01%-0.3%, respectively. For the short-term assessment, the dietary exposure risks of the 9 fungicides that have acute reference dose (ARfD) were acceptable with risk quotients (RQs) of 0.02%-28.9% for children and 0.01%-7.2% for adults. From the risk assessment results, it could be concluded that long-term and short-term exposure of 13 fungicides in mangoes would not cause a health concern for general population. According to the registration status of the 13 pesticides, the MRLs in national standards of China (GB 2763—2021), and the results of dietary exposure assessment of the 13 fungicides, it is recommended to strengthen the supervision on application of 7 unregistered pesticides on mangoes, including kresoxim-methyl, propiconazole, myclobutanil, flusilazole, fenbuconazole, epoxiconazole and triadimenol, and to modify the MRL of pyraclostrobin and to set a MRL for picoxystrobin in mangoes.