From Target to Unknown: Comprehensive Identification and Risk Assessment of Organophosphate Pesticides in Foodstuffs

Abstract

The assessment of organophosphate pesticides (OPPs) residues in foodstuffs is globally significant. This work reports an integrated target, suspect, and nontarget screening strategy that identified known and unknown OPPs across 107 commercial retailed food samples from the Nanjing market in 2020. The residues of Σ_24targetOPPs ranged from ND-92.6 ng/g wet weight, with the highest levels in aquatic products (mean: 13.7 ng/g) and meat (12.6 ng/g). Using high-resolution Orbitrap mass spectrometry, feature fragmentations of 17 OPPs were analyzed, seven suspect and two nontarget OPPs were fully or provisionally identified. Additionally, 32 other types of pesticide residues were detected using a reference mass spectrometry data set. The estimated dietary intake of Σ_24targetOPPs of Nanjing residents was 86.5 ng/kg bw/day, with a cumulative hazard index of 9.70 × 10^–3, indicating negligible risks. This study advances comprehensive OPPs identification methodologies in foodstuffs and underscores the criticality of dietary risk assessment for emerging pesticide contaminants.