Research Publications (Food Safety)

Since the discovery of aflatoxins in the 1960s, much research has focused on detecting the toxins in contaminated food and feedstuffs in the interest of public safety. Most traditional detection methods involved lengthy culturing and/or separation techniques or analytical instrumentation and complex, multistep procedures that required destruction of samples for accurate toxin determination.

Foreword: aflatoxins in maize and other crops

This review highlights developments in the determination of mycotoxins over a period between mid-2013 and mid-2014. It continues in the format of the previous articles of this series, emphasising on analytical methods to determine aflatoxins, Alternaria toxins, ergot alkaloids, fumonisins, ochratoxins, patulin, trichothecenes and zearalenone.

Publication date: February 2015
Food and Chemical Toxicology, Volume 76
Author(s): Yuan-Zhen Wu , Fu-Pu Lu , Hai-Lan Jian , Cui-Ping Tan , Dong-Sheng Yao , Chun-Fang Xie , Da-Ling Liu

Publication date: February 2015
Food and Chemical Toxicology, Volume 76
Author(s): Laura-Ana Corcuera , Ariane Vettorazzi , Leire Arbillaga , Noemí Pérez , Ana Gloria Gil , Amaya Azqueta , Elena González-Peñas , Jose Antonio García-Jalón , Adela López de Cerain

Mycotoxins are low molecular weight fungal metabolites that pose a threat as toxic contaminants of food products, thereby necessitating their effective monitoring and control. Microplate ELISA can be used for this purpose, but this method is characteristically time consuming, with a duration extending to several hours. This report proposes a variant of the ELISA method for the detection and quantification of three mycotoxins, ochratoxin A, aflatoxin B1 and zearalenone, in the kinetic regime.

The feasibility of using a visible/near-infrared hyperspectral imaging system with a wavelength range between 400 and 1000 nm to detect and differentiate different levels of aflatoxin B1AFB1) artificially titrated on maize kernel surface was examined. To reduce the color effects of maize kernels, image analysis was limited to a subset of original spectra (600 to 1000 nm). Residual staining from the AFB1 on the kernels surface was selected as regions of interest for analysis.

January Online CoverMaize kernels, with inset of hyperspectral image showing regions of interest, from “Feasibility of Detecting Aflatoxin B1 on Inoculated Maize Kernels Surface using Vis/NIR Hyperspectral Imaging” by Wei Wang, Gerald W. Heitschmidt, William R. Windham, Peggy Feldner, Xinzhi Ni, and Xuan Chu; p. M117.

Foodborne Pathogens and Disease , Vol. 0, No. 0.

Publication date: June 2015
, Volume 52
Author(s): Jelka Pleadin , Mladenka Malenica Staver , Nada Vahčić , Dragan Kovačević , Salvatore Milone , Lara Saftić , Giampiero Scortichini

Publication date: June 2015
, Volume 52
Author(s): Ruchika Chauhan , Pratima R. Solanki , Jay Singh , Irani Mukherjee , T. Basu , B.D. Malhotra

Publication date: 1 June 2015
, Volume 176
Author(s): Lili Yu , Yang Zhang , Chenyi Hu , Hui Wu , Yayun Yang , Chusen Huang , Nengqin Jia

Publication date: May 2015
, Volume 51
Author(s): Daofeng Liu , Yanmei Huang , Shuying Wang , Kun Liu , Minghui Chen , Yonghua Xiong , Wanchun Yang , Weihua Lai

Publication date: June 2015
, Volume 52
Author(s): Gabriela Castillo , Katia Spinella , Alexandra Poturnayová , Maja Šnejdárková , Lucia Mosiello , Tibor Hianik

Aim
This study evaluated the binding capacity of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) by two Enterococcus faecium strains (MF4 and GJ40) isolated from faeces from healthy dogs.

Materials and Methods
The binding assay was performed using 50 and 100 ppb of AFB1 analysing the effects of the viability, incubation time and pH on AFB1 binding. Binding stability was determined by washing three times the bacteria-AFB1 complexes with phosphate buffer saline.

Aspergillus flavus is a well-known ubiquitous fungus able to contaminate both in pre- and postharvest period different feed and food commodities. During their growth, these fungi can synthesise aflatoxins, secondary metabolites highly hazardous for animal and human health. The requirement of products with low impact on the environment and on human health, able to control aflatoxin production, has increased.

Aflatoxin contamination in groundnut by Aspergillus section Flavi is a major pre- and post-harvest problem causing kernel-quality loss. Post-harvest aflatoxin contamination is caused initially by infestation of aflatoxigenic strains at the pre-harvest stage, resulting in reduced kernel quality after harvest. Improper handling of pods and storage methods after harvest lead to high moisture and ambient temperatures, directly causing aflatoxin contamination.