Research Publications (Food Safety)

Total arsenic (As) and inorganic As (Asi) in milled rice (n = 1653) collected from China were studied to evaluate the contamination level, distribution, and health risks. The mean concentrations of the total As and Asi were 116.5 and 90.9 μg/kg, respectively. There were significant differences (P < 0.01) between the 11 provinces, and 1.1% of samples exceeded the maximum contaminant level established by Chinese legislation.

Disease management in vineyards with fungicides sometimes results in undesirable residue accumulations in grapes at harvest. Bioaugmentation of the grape fructosphere can be a useful approach for enhancing the degradation rate and reducing the residues to safe levels.

Deoxynivalenol (DON) and fumonisins (FBs) are secondary metabolites produced by Fusarium fungi that frequently contaminate broiler feed. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of DON and/or FBs on the intestinal barrier in broiler chickens, more specifically on the mucus layer and antioxidative response to oxidative stress.

Hard winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is a major crop in the Great Plains of the United States, and our previous work demonstrated that wheat genotypes vary for grain cadmium accumulation with some exceeding the CODEX standard (0.2 mg kg–1). Previous reports of cadmium distribution in flour milling fractions have not included high cadmium grain.

Immunochromatographic (IC) assays are considered suitable diagnostic tools for the determination of mycotoxins. A europium nanospheres-based time-resolved fluorescence immunoassay (Eu-Nano-TRFIA), based on a monoclonal antibody and a portable TRFIA reader, was developed to determine total aflatoxin (including aflatoxins B1, B2, G1, and G2) levels in feed samples. Under optimized conditions, the Eu-Nano-TRFIA method detected total aflatoxin within 12 min.

As broad-spectrum pesticides, organophosphates (OPs) are widely used in agriculture all over the world. However, due to their neurotoxicity in humans and their increasing occurrence in the environment, there is growing interest in their sensitive and selective detection. This paper reports a new cost-effective plant esterase–chitosan/gold nanoparticles–graphene nanosheet (PLaE-CS/AuNPs-GNs) biosensor for the sensitive detection of methyl parathion and malathion.

There are more than 300 potential mycotoxins that can contaminate food and feed and cause adverse effects in humans and animals. The data on the co-occurrence of mycotoxins in novel animal feed materials, such as distiller’s dried grain with solubles (DDGS), are limited. Thus, a UHPLC–MS/MS method for the quantitation of 77 mycotoxins and other fungal metabolites was used to analyze 169 DDGS samples produced from wheat, maize, and barley and 61 grain samples.

A new kind of glyoxal–urea–formaldehyde molecularly imprinted resin (GUF-MIR) was synthesized by a glyoxal–urea–formaldehyde (GUF) gel imprinting method with 4,4′-dichlorobenzhydrol as a dummy template.

This work developed a UHPLC-MS/MS method for the detection and quantitation of aflatoxins in smokeless tobacco products, which was then used to determine aflatoxin B1 concentrations in 32 smokeless tobacco products commercially available in the United States.

A simple analytical method was developed for the simultaneous analysis of 18 perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) in edible oil. The target compounds were extracted by acetonitrile, purified by gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and dispersive solid-phase extraction (DSPE) using graphitized carbon black (GCB) and octadecyl (C18), and analyzed by liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ES-MS/MS) in negative ion mode.

Coffee is a highly consumed and popular beverage all over the world; however, coffee beans used for daily consumption may contain pesticide residues that may cause adverse health effects to consumers. In this monitoring study, the effect of household coffee processing on pesticide residues in coffee beans was investigated.

A single-step lateral flow immunoassay was developed and validated to detect okadaic acid (OA) and dinophysis toxins (DTXs), which cause diarrhetic shellfish poisoning. The performance characteristics of the test were investigated, in comparison to reference methods (liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry and/or bioassay), using both spiked and naturally contaminated shellfish.

Consumption of food products contaminated with cereulide (1), a toxin produced by Bacillus cereus, might cause intoxications with symptoms reported to range from indigestion pain and emesis to death. Recently, a series of structural variants, coined isocereulides A–G (2–8), were identified for the first time to be produced along with cereulide (1).

Aerobic spores pose serious problems for both food product manufacturers and consumers. Milk is particularly at risk and thus an important issue of preventive consumer protection and quality assurance. The spore-former Bacillus cereus is a food poisoning Gram-positive pathogen which mainly produces two different types of toxins, the diarrhea inducing and the emetic toxins. Reliable and rapid analytical assays for the detection of B.