The Impact of Mycotoxins on Food Safety

The issue of mycotoxins in feed and feed components is one that perhaps doesn’t have as high a profile as it should, but it is a serious food safety issue. Mycotoxins are a group of naturally occurring chemicals produced by certain molds, which are most prevalent in warm and humid conditions. They occur in a variety of different crops that are colonized with filamentous fungi and in food products contaminated during processing and storage. Food products in which mycotoxins occur include cereals and grains, animal feed, nuts, spices, dried fruits, apple juice and coffee.

Consumption of mycotoxins can result in significant adverse health effects in humans and animals, including kidney damage, reproductive disorders and cancer. As such, international food standards recommend that food producers carry out screening for mycotoxins. To protect consumers, a tolerable daily intake (TDI)1 has been established which estimates the quantity of mycotoxins that someone can safely be exposed to daily over a lifetime, without it posing a significant risk to health.

There is a range of mycotoxins that are of most concern from a food safety perspective. These include the aflatoxins (B1, B2, G1, G2 and M1), ochratoxin A, patulin and toxins produced by fusarium molds, including fumonisins (B1, B2, B3) and trichothecenes (principally nivalenol, deoxynivalenol, T-2 and HT-2 toxins) and zearalenone. The most toxic are aflatoxins, including alflatoxin B1, which can damage DNA and cause cancer in animals and humans.

Aflatoxins

Strict legislative limits for aflatoxins, ochratoxin A, patulin and fusarium toxins are set out in European Commission legislation, which applies whether food is produced in the European Union (EU) or imported into the EU. Globally, however, the rules on mycotoxins are varied, with screening requirements legislated to a greater or lesser degree.

There are a number of special import conditions currently in place for some foods from certain developing nations where the risk from alfatoxin contamination is increased. However, compliance with internationally acceptable limits for mycotoxins can be a challenge for the global food industry, requiring good plant protection, adequate storage and good manufacturing practices in order to keep levels below the limits.

A growing awareness of the issues surrounding excessive mycotoxin consumption has resulted in an increase in available screening technologies on the market, including technologies from Randox Food Diagnostics. Its range of screening tools for the quantitative analysis of mycotoxins are available both in high-quality ELISAs and Randox’s unique, patented Biochip Array Technology (BAT).

Randox’s cutting-edge BAT screening allows fast, comprehensive and sensitive semi-qualification of all the most prevalent mycotoxins. With just a single 50µl sample and simple sample preparation, the user will obtain highly accurate semi-quantitative results in under two hours. Using Randox BAT eliminates the need for costly single tests and lowers the cost per sample, saving food testing laboratories time and money.

 The New Mycotoxins Array from Randox Food Diagnostics

Using Randox technology gives labs the flexibility to test only those mycotoxins of concern. This mean that test assays can be specified to screen for particular mycotoxins, depending on factors such as storage or harvest conditions.

Benefits of Randox BAT at a glance:

• Straightforward screening for 10 mycotoxins from a single sample
• Semi-quantitative results for 45 samples ready in under two hours
• No false negatives and less than 5% false positives in studies
• Only positive samples require confirmatory testing, saving labs money
• Robust and easy to use with simple sample preparation

For laboratories using ELISA screening, Randox offers an extensive (and expanding) range of ELISAs for 26 mycotoxins in three assays: Ergot Alkaloids, Aflatoxin M1 and Alfatoxin B1. All ELISAs are pre-coated with antibodies, offering detection that meets regulatory requirements, while saving labs time and ensuring rapid analysis. This offers excellent inter and intra assay precision that increases the reliability of results, ensuring less false positives and guaranteeing the best screening capability.

With global controls on food safety and contaminants such as mycotoxins becoming ever more stringent, having the right technology is key to meeting those challenges now and in the future. Randox Food Diagnostics is used by many of the world’s leading food producers and is leading the market in mycotoxin screening.

Written by Lisa Hughes, Randox Food Diagnostics

Ref: 1. www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/mycotoxins