Innovative approaches for mycotoxin detection in various food categories

Abstract

Mycotoxins (MTs), produced by filamentous fungi, represent a severe hazard to the health of humans and food safety, affecting the quality of various agricultural products. They can contaminate a wide range of foods, during any processing phase before or after harvest. Animals and humans who consume MTs-contaminated food or feed may experience acute or chronic poisoning, which may result in serious pathological consequences. Accordingly, developing rapid, easy, and accurate methods of MTs detection in food becomes highly urgent and critical as a quality control and to guarantee food safety and lower health hazards. In this review, we highlighted and discussed innovative approaches like biosensors, fluorescent polarization, capillary electrophoresis, infrared spectroscopy, and electronic noses for MT identification pointing out current challenges and future directions. The limitations, current challenges, and future directions of conventional detection methods versus innovative methods have also been highlighted and discussed.

Biosensors for Food Mycotoxin Determination: A Comparative and Critical Review

“…The conventional analysis methods (chromatography, ELISA, and immunoassay techniques) have been largely applied to mycotoxin detection in food but suffer from a series of limitations, such as laborious steps concerning sample preparation (that may imply grinding, mixing, and homogenization), extraction, and clean up procedures. The use of solvents, the requirement for skilled personnel, the high analysis cost, and the difficulty of collecting representative samples given the heterogenous character represent other drawbacks [171]. The inconsistency linked to food analysis by these methods could be reduced by increasing sample size, the degree of crushing, and the number of aliquots analyzed [172].…”

“…One important advantage of biosensors over other rapid screening strip tests is their recycling use. Even if their application has been reported as straightforward when compared to laborious conventional techniques, the use of biosensors as analytical tools may still involve sample cleanup [171].…”

Deoxynivalenol and Zearalenone from Cereals and Cereals Products

“…They are resistant to environmental factors, oxidize very slowly and their effect can manifest itself after years. There are no known effective methods for the total elimination of mycotoxins from food [14,1].…”

“…Due to the importance of mycotoxins in public food, according to existing studies, a competitive immunosensor was made, which is based on fluorescent nanospheres (magnetically encoded), for the simultaneous detection, thanks to the 2x2 matrix, of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), ochratoxin (OTA), deoxynivalenol (DON) and zearalenone (ZEN) in wheat, this being a sensitive and accurate alternative method for the detection of mycotoxins in addition to existing ones [1].…”

“…Mycotoxin is a secondary metabolite produced by filamentous fungi, and the diseases produced are called mycotoxicoses [1]. According to Singh et all, 2020, mycotoxins are a diverse group of low molecular weight fungal secondary metabolites [2].…”