Dear Colleagues,

The co-occurrence of multiple mycotoxins in food and feed represents worldwide a severe threat for public health and animal welfare, and poses relevant challenges in the food toxicology field.

Regulated mycotoxins represent the minority of those potentially entering the food chain. Fungal infection in the field and upon storage may lead to the accumulation of different mycotoxins in crops, whose amount and distribution may be affected by food processing. Studies performed over the last decade clearly showed that the number and diversity of mycotoxins to which consumers are potentially exposed, is even more increased by plant metabolism.

After ingestion, mycotoxins and their modified forms are released from food matrices by the digestion process itself, before being absorbed and distributed. In the liver, but also in the gastrointestinal tract and in other tissues, mycotoxins undergo phase-I and phase-II metabolism before being excreted. Such metabolic modification may drastically change the toxicity of parental compounds, acting as a deactivation and/or a bioactivation. Although, over the years, the scientific community has made enormous steps forwards in the identification of mycotoxins and their metabolic fate, there is an urgent need of a deeper understanding of the modes of action of regulated and emerging mycotoxins according to the ADMEtox approach. In this context, the assessment of metabolome may reveal to what extent the metabolic transformations affect the toxicodynamic of parental mycotoxins, identifying which modifications prevent the interaction with biological targets.

The focus of this Special Issue of Toxins will be on the most recent advances related to the human metabolism of mycotoxins. Recent advances in metabolomics and biomarker validation will be addressed. The use of omics techniques will also be encouraged in this context. Finally, an overview of some selected promising tools (i.e., non-animal testing methods, predictive toxicology, in vitro methodologies for combined toxic effects) that are potentially able to address the forthcoming challenges in this field will be included. Both research (in particular) and review articles proposing novelties or overviews, respectively, are welcome.

Prof. Chiara Dall'Asta

Guest Editor

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• Xenobiotics;

• mode of action;

• food safety;

• risk assessment;

• chemical mixture;

• biotransformation

• Mycotoxins and Human Diseases 2015 in Toxins (12 articles)