Despite being introduced more than a decade ago, agricultural biotechnology still remains framed in controversy impacting both the global economy and international regulations. Controversies surrounding agricultural biotechnology produced crops and foods commonly focus on human and environmental safety, intellectual property rights, consumer choice, ethics, food security, poverty reduction and ...

Mycotoxins (ie toxins produced by molds) are fungal metabolites that can contaminate foods and feeds and cause toxic effects in higher organisms that consume the contaminated commodities. Therefore, mycotoxin contamination of foods and feeds results is a serious food safety issue and affects the competitiveness of US agriculture in both domestic and export markets. This article highlights resea...

Traditionally, fish meal and fish oil have been used as main sources of proteins and energy in the commercial fish feeds. Nowadays these ingredients have been partially substituted with materials of plant-origin (e.g. maize, wheat and soy) due to their more inexpensive price and easier availability. If contaminated plant material is used in the making of fish feed, the finished product can cont...

Distiller's dried grains with solubles (DDGS) is a major coproduct of the fuel-ethanol industry and is becoming a popular low-cost ingredient for animal feed. Uncertainties regarding the risk factors in DDGS, such as level of mycotoxins, could limit its application in the animal feed industry. To provide a scientifically sound assessment of the prevalence and levels of mycotoxins in U.S. DDGS, ...

The objective of this study was to assess cytotoxic effects of ochratoxin A (OTA), penicillic acid (PA), citrinin (CIT), fumonisin B1 (FB1) and their combinations (as naturally occur in real practice) on human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBM) using a simple and cheap “in vitro” cytotoxicity test as MTT assay. A stronger suppression on metabolic activity of phytohaemagglutinin-p (PHA)-st...

This application note describes the development of a multitarget method for the determination of 191 mycotoxins and other fungal metabolites as well as its validation in almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts, and pistachios. In addition to all mycotoxins regulated in the European Union, the method includes many mycotoxins that are frequently found in food. The method comprises a simple extraction with an...

The aim of this study was to determine the presence of mycotoxins on dogs feed and to explore the potential association between mycotoxins exposure and the chance of mamary tumors in a case-control study. The study included 256 female dogs from a hospital population, 85 with mammary tumors (case group) and 171 without mammary tumors (control group). An epidemiological questionnaire was applied ...

Mycotoxins are secondary fungal metabolites that may have mutagenic, carcinogenic, cytotoxic and endocrine disrupting effects. These substances frequently contaminate agricultural commodities despite efforts to prevent them, so successful detoxification tools are needed. The application of microorganisms to biodegrade mycotoxins is a novel strategy that shows potential for application in food a...

The Fusarium genus of fungi is responsible for commercially devastating crop diseases and the contamination of cereals with harmful mycotoxins. Fusarium mycotoxins aid infection, establishment, and spread of the fungus within the host plant. We investigated the effects of the Fusarium mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON) on the viability of Arabidopsis cells. Although it is known to trigger apoptosis...