Current Status and Future Opportunities of Omics Tools in Mycotoxin Research

Abstract

Mycotoxins are toxic secondary metabolites of low molecular weight produced by filamentous fungi, such as Aspergillus, Fusarium, and Penicillium spp. Mycotoxins are natural contaminants of agricultural commodities and their prevalence may increase due to global warming. Dangerous mycotoxins cause a variety of health problems not only for humans, but also for animals. For instance, they possess carcinogenic, immunosuppressive, hepatotoxic, nephrotoxic, and neurotoxic effects. Hence, various approaches have been used to assess and control mycotoxin contamination. Significant challenges still exist because of the complex heterogeneous nature of food composition. The potential of combined omics approaches such as metabolomics, genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics would contribute to our understanding about pathogen fungal crosstalk as well as strengthen our ability to identify, isolate, and characterise mycotoxins pre and post-harvest. Multi-omics approaches along with advanced analytical tools and chemometrics provide a complete annotation of such metabolites produced before/during the contamination of crops. We have assessed the merits of these individual and combined omics approaches and their promising applications to mitigate the issue of mycotoxin contamination. The data included in this review focus on aflatoxin, ochratoxin, and patulin and would be useful as benchmark information for future research.

Insights into Aflatoxin B1 Toxicity in Cattle: An In Vitro Whole-Transcriptomic Approach

“…Transcriptional profiling is a widely used tool to investigate the mechanistic toxicology of mycotoxins [39]. Some in vitro studies have explored the transcriptomic alterations associated with AFB1 exposure, and most of these studies have been conducted in both human primary hepatocytes and hepatoma cell lines (i.e., HepaRG and HepG2) [40][41][42].…”

Simultaneous Determination of Twenty Mycotoxins in the Korean Soybean Paste Doenjang by LC-MS/MS with Immunoaffinity Cleanup

“…HPLC-MS has frequently been used to simultaneously determine various mycotoxins in food, particularly by LC coupled with triple quadrupole (QqQ)-MS using electrospray ionization (ESI) mode. QqQ-MS operating in multiple-reaction monitoring mode (also called selective reaction monitoring, SRM mode) provides a more sensitive analysis of targeted or known mycotoxins when using one precursor ion and a few product ions for each analyte compared with full spectral data [15,16]. Furthermore, QqQ-MS analysis can reduce dwell times, with faster data collection, without reducing the signal-to-noise ratio of the chromatographic peak, which also meets the requirements of UPLC, a recent replacement of HPLC [17].…”

Brazilian Coffee Production and the Future Microbiome and Mycotoxin Profile Considering the Climate Change Scenario

“…However, these are just a few within an arsenal of high-throughput techniques that have contributed to a rapid expansion of data and facilitated a significant increase in our knowledge of biological and biochemical processes. The techniques of transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics, together named multi-omics approaches, are already being used to gain an understanding of the functional capabilities of isolated microorganisms [ 86 , 87 ]. Fortunately, recent studies have expanded beyond identifying a few microorganisms to characterizing more and more complex microbial communities and their impact on the plant host.…”