Screening for total ergot alkaloids in rye flour by planar solid phase extraction-fluorescence detection and mass spectrometry.

The analysis of ergot alkaloids is generally performed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled to fluorescence detection (FLD) or mass selective detection. As for monitoring only the sum of ergot alkaloids is relevant, a fast and easy screening method for the determination of the total alkaloid content was developed using planar solid phase extraction (pSPE). Applying pSPE, recently introduced for pesticide residue analysis in fruits and vegetables (Oellig and Schwack, 2011) and tea (Oellig and Schwack, 2012), all ergot alkaloids are concentrated in a target zone followed by detection as the sum.

Structure of Meson-Baryon interaction vertices.

We present a microscopic derivation of the form factors of strong-interaction piNN and piNDelta vertices within a relativistic constituent quark model. The results are compared with form factors from phenomenological meson-baryon models and recent lattice QCD calculations. We give an analytical representation of the vertex form factors suitable for applications in further studies of hadron reactions.