Mycotoxins and Food

A special issue of Toxins (ISSN 2072-6651). This special issue belongs to the section "Mycotoxins".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2021) | Viewed by 15792

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Pharmacy, School of Medicine and Surgery, University of Naples Federico II, Box 80131 Naples, Italy
Interests: mycotoxins; food analysis; mass spectrometry; food safety

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue will focus on mycotoxins, but research on innovative approaches with interactions of different competences will be welcome. This Special Issue will include results coming from conventional investigations, analytical improvements, biosensors, new food matrixes, evaluations of food safety, and new ideas coming from bioinformatics, microbiological aspects, microbiome interactions, biological assays, mycotoxin reduction processes in food, and masked mycotoxins. The goal of this Special Issue is to collect contributions from researchers new to this field and to invite to interactions in order to enlarge the number of researchers involved in mycotoxin research.

Prof. Dr. Alberto Ritieni
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • mycotoxin
  • mycotoxin surveillance in food
  • mycotoxin toxicity in vitro
  • mycotoxin and silico evaluation
  • mycotoxin reduction in food production
  • mycotoxins and the microbiome
  • mycotoxins and human health

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 317 KiB  
Article
Mycotoxin Occurrence and Risk Assessment in Gluten-Free Pasta through UHPLC-Q-Exactive Orbitrap MS
by Josefa Tolosa, Yelko Rodríguez-Carrasco, Giulia Graziani, Anna Gaspari, Emilia Ferrer, Jordi Mañes and Alberto Ritieni
Toxins 2021, 13(5), 305; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins13050305 - 25 Apr 2021
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3750
Abstract
Celiac disease (CD) is a genetic-based autoimmune disorder which is characterized by inflammation in the small intestinal mucosa due to the intolerance to gluten. Celiac people should consume products without gluten, which are elaborated mainly with maize or other cereals. Contamination of cereals [...] Read more.
Celiac disease (CD) is a genetic-based autoimmune disorder which is characterized by inflammation in the small intestinal mucosa due to the intolerance to gluten. Celiac people should consume products without gluten, which are elaborated mainly with maize or other cereals. Contamination of cereals with mycotoxins, such as fumonisins (FBs) and aflatoxins (AFs) is frequently reported worldwide. Therefore, food ingestion is the main source of mycotoxin exposure. A new analytical method was developed and validated for simultaneous analysis of 21 mycotoxins in gluten-free pasta, commonly consumed by celiac population as an alternative to conventional pasta. Ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography coupled to quadrupole Orbitrap high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-Exactive Orbitrap MS) was used for analyte separation and detection. The mycotoxins included in this work were those widely reported to occur in cereal samples, namely, ochratoxin-A (OTA), aflatoxins (AFB1, AFB2, AFG1 and AFG2), zearalenone (ZON), deoxynivalenol (DON), 3-acetyl-deoxynivalenol and 15-acetyl-deoxynivalenol (3-AcDON and 15-AcDON, respectively), nivalenol (NIV), neosolaniol (NEO), fusarenone-X, (FUS-X), T-2 toxin (T-2) and HT-2 toxin (HT-2), fumonisin B1 and B2 (FB1 and FB2, respectively), enniatins (ENN A, ENN A1, ENN B and ENN B1) and beauvericin (BEA). The validated method was successfully applied to 84 gluten-free pasta samples collected from several local markets of Campania region (Italy) during September to November 2020 to monitor the occurrence of mycotoxins and to assess the exposure to these food contaminants. A significant number of samples (95%) showed mycotoxin contamination, being Fusarium mycotoxins (FB1, ZON and DON) the most commonly detected ones. Regarding the risk assessment, the higher exposures were obtained for NIV, DON and FB1 for children and teenagers age group which can be explained due to their lower body weight. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mycotoxins and Food)
16 pages, 1496 KiB  
Article
Multiple Mycotoxins in Kenyan Rice
by Samuel K. Mutiga, J. Musembi Mutuku, Vincent Koskei, James Kamau Gitau, Fredrick Ng’ang’a, Joyce Musyoka, George N. Chemining’wa and Rosemary Murori
Toxins 2021, 13(3), 203; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins13030203 - 11 Mar 2021
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 4321
Abstract
Multiple mycotoxins were tested in milled rice samples (n = 200) from traders at different milling points within the Mwea Irrigation Scheme in Kenya. Traders provided the names of the cultivar, village where paddy was cultivated, sampling locality, miller, and month of [...] Read more.
Multiple mycotoxins were tested in milled rice samples (n = 200) from traders at different milling points within the Mwea Irrigation Scheme in Kenya. Traders provided the names of the cultivar, village where paddy was cultivated, sampling locality, miller, and month of paddy harvest between 2018 and 2019. Aflatoxin, citrinin, fumonisin, ochratoxin A, diacetoxyscirpenol, T2, HT2, and sterigmatocystin were analyzed using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC–MS/MS). Deoxynivalenol was tested using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Mycotoxins occurred in ranges and frequencies in the following order: sterigmatocystin (0–7 ppb; 74.5%), aflatoxin (0–993 ppb; 55.5%), citrinin (0–9 ppb; 55.5%), ochratoxin A (0–110 ppb; 30%), fumonisin (0–76 ppb; 26%), diacetoxyscirpenol (0–24 ppb; 20.5%), and combined HT2 + T2 (0–62 ppb; 14.5%), and deoxynivalenol was detected in only one sample at 510 ppb. Overall, low amounts of toxins were observed in rice with a low frequency of samples above the regulatory limits for aflatoxin, 13.5%; ochratoxin A, 6%; and HT2 + T2, 0.5%. The maximum co-contamination was for 3.5% samples with six toxins in different combinations. The rice cultivar, paddy environment, time of harvest, and millers influenced the occurrence of different mycotoxins. There is a need to establish integrated approaches for the mitigation of mycotoxin accumulation in the Kenyan rice. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mycotoxins and Food)
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15 pages, 2047 KiB  
Article
Oral Sub-Chronic Ochratoxin a Exposure Induces Gut Microbiota Alterations in Mice
by María Izco, Ariane Vettorazzi, Maria de Toro, Yolanda Sáenz and Lydia Alvarez-Erviti
Toxins 2021, 13(2), 106; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins13020106 - 1 Feb 2021
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 3548
Abstract
Gut microbiota plays crucial roles in maintaining host health. External factors, such as diet, medicines, and environmental toxins, influence the composition of gut microbiota. Ochratoxin A (OTA) is one of the most prevalent and relevant mycotoxins and is a highly abundant food and [...] Read more.
Gut microbiota plays crucial roles in maintaining host health. External factors, such as diet, medicines, and environmental toxins, influence the composition of gut microbiota. Ochratoxin A (OTA) is one of the most prevalent and relevant mycotoxins and is a highly abundant food and animal feed contaminant. In the present study, we aimed to investigate OTA gut microbiome toxicity in mice sub-chronically exposed to low doses of OTA (0.21, 0.5, and 1.5 mg/kg body weight) by daily oral gavage for 28 days. Fecal microbiota from control and OTA-treated mice was analyzed using 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequencing followed by metagenomics. OTA exposure caused marked changes in gut microbial community structure, including the decrease in the diversity of fecal microbiota and the relative abundance of Firmicutes, as well as the increase in the relative abundance of Bacteroidetes at the phylum level. At the family level, six bacterial families (unclassified Bacteroidales, Porphyromonadaceae, unclassified Cyanobacteria, Streptococcaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, Ruminococcaceae) were significantly altered by OTA exposure. Interestingly, OTA-induced changes were observed in the lower-dose OTA groups, while high-dose OTA group microbiota was similar to control group. Our results demonstrated that sub-chronic exposure at low doses of OTA alters the structure and diversity of the gut microbial community. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mycotoxins and Food)
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15 pages, 476 KiB  
Article
Genetic Diversity, Ochratoxin A and Fumonisin Profiles of Strains of Aspergillus Section Nigri Isolated from Dried Vine Fruits
by Petra Mikušová, Miroslav Caboň, Andrea Melichárková, Martin Urík, Alberto Ritieni and Marek Slovák
Toxins 2020, 12(9), 592; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins12090592 - 14 Sep 2020
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3351
Abstract
We investigated ochratoxin A (OTA) contamination in raisin samples purchased from Slovak markets and determined the diversity of black-spored aspergilli as potential OTA and fumonisin (FB1 and FB2) producers. The taxonomic identification was performed using sequences of the nuclear ITS1-5.8s-ITS2 region, the calmodulin [...] Read more.
We investigated ochratoxin A (OTA) contamination in raisin samples purchased from Slovak markets and determined the diversity of black-spored aspergilli as potential OTA and fumonisin (FB1 and FB2) producers. The taxonomic identification was performed using sequences of the nuclear ITS1-5.8s-ITS2 region, the calmodulin and beta-tubulin genes. We obtained 239 isolates from eight fungal genera, of which 197 belonged to Aspergillus (82%) and 42 strains (18%) to other fungal genera. OTA contamination was evidenced in 75% of the samples and its level ranged from 0.8 to 10.6 µg/kg. The combination of all three markers used enabled unambiguous identification of A. carbonarius, A. luchuensis, A. niger, A. tubingensis and A. welwitschiae. The dominant coloniser, simultaneously having the highest within-species diversity isolated from our raisin samples, was A. tubingensis. Out of all analysed strains, only A. carbonarius was found to produce OTA, but in relatively high quantity (2477–4382 µg/kg). The production of FB1 and FB2 was evidenced in A. niger strains only. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mycotoxins and Food)
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