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Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites of fungi which have diverse detrimental effects on humans, animals and crops. Traceable worldwide in foods and animal feeds, these contaminants cause manifold diseases and extensive economic losses. Therefore, European legislation set maximum levels of distinct mycotoxins to minimize the risks for the buying public. But standardized food analysis techniques fail to detect masked mycotoxins, whose research increasingly moves to the fore in recent years. They are formed from detoxification metabolism of plants as well as from fungi, which conjugate for example with glucosides or dihexosides. All masked mycotoxins have one thing in common: They are not detectable with standard methods, thereby contributing to the overall exposure and pose an additional health risk for the consumer.
The dissertation work will focus on the following potential new group of masked toxins. Food safety relevant mycotoxins like zearalenone and ochratoxin A possess one or more 1,3-dicarbonyl moieties. Latter are principally able to form thermodynamically stable chelate complexes with metal cations. First investigations at BAM showed interactions between zearalenone and copper ions and it is conceivable that they possibly build a complex. Our main focus is now to identify, characterize and quantify 1,3-dicarbonyl mycotoxin metal complexes as potential candidates within the group of conjugated mycotoxins.
We will simulate processes of biotransformation and identify distinct metabolites by electrochemistry coupled to liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (EC-HPLC-MS). The obtained knowledge contributes to a better understanding of masked mycotoxins and an improved monitoring of foods and feeds, to ensure food safety.
To understand the metabolic fate of food relevant mycotoxins in vitro systems were mainly used as the method of choice, so far. Yet, in recent years coupling of electrochemistry mass spectrometry (EC-MS) gained increasing importance as promising technique for fast simulation of metabolic processes and was successfully applied in particular for drug metabolism [1].
The aim of our work was to investigate the potential of EC-MS to predict phase I metabolites of priority mycotoxins and to compare the results with in vitro experiments. Hence, the EU-regulated Fusarium mycotoxins zearalenone (ZEN) and patulin as well as dihydroergocristine (DHEC) as model compound of ergot alkaloids were electrochemically oxidized and analyzed by EC MS for the first time.
Electrochemical conditions were set-up individually for each of the three mycotoxins. By using a coulometric flow through cell with a diamond working electrode oxidation of the chosen mycotoxins was observed after applying potentials between 1.7 and 2.0 V vs. Pd/H2. The electrochemically generated reaction products were analyzed online by mass-spectrometric detection.
All of the three chosen mycotoxins were electrochemically converted to mono- and/or dihydroxylated products confirming the results of ZEN related metabolism studies [2, 3] and in case of DHEC own results from in vitro assays. Due to a lack of metabolism studies concerning the oxidative fate of patulin, interpretation of EC-MS data and performing microsomal studies is of particular relevance.
Beside the identified products from electrochemical oxidation of ZEN, patulin and DHEC there is still a number of yet unknown compounds. Additional structural characterization of detected compounds by NMR and X-ray analysis will be facilitated by their large-scale production using preparative EC cells.
To keep up with emerging mycotoxins and their transformation products fast and reliable toxicity tests are needed. Toxicity testing of mycotoxins is carried out usually by performing in vitro assays or is evaluated by using laboratory animals like mice, rats or chicken in in vivo studies.
Settled between classical in vitro approaches and in vivo studies with higher animals are tests with the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Since Sydney Brenner described 1974 the cultivation and handling of C. elegans, this worm is widely used as model organism in developmental biology and neurology. Due to many benefits like easy and cheap cultivation, a completely sequenced genome and short generation time, it also plays an important role in toxicological research. Finally, the high number of conserved genes between human and C. elegans make the worm an ideal candidate for toxicological investigations.
In this study we used C. elegans to assess the toxic effects of the relevant food mycotoxin citrinin (CIT), the mycoestrogen zearalenone (ZEN) and the modified mycotoxin ZEN-14-sulfate (ZEN-14-S) on different lifetable parameters including reproduction, thermal and oxidative stress tolerance and lifespan. All tested mycotoxins significantly decreased the amount of offspring. In case of ZEN and CIT also significant negative effects on stress tolerance and lifespan were observed compared to the control group.
Moreover, metabolization of mycotoxins in the worms was investigated by using LC MS/MS. Extraction of the worms treated 5 days with mycotoxin-containing and UVC-killed bacteria showed metabolization of ZEN to α-ZEL and β-ZEL (ZEL = zearalenol, ratio about 3:2). ZEN 14-S was reduced to ZEL 14-S and CIT was metabolized to mono hydroxylated CIT.
Ergot alkaloids play a significant role in human history for more than 1000 years and are part of the most common contaminants of food and feed worldwide. Their high toxicity against humans and livestock even at low concentrations causes a high demand for quick and reliable analytics even though no European limits for ergot alkaloids have been determined yet. Currently the most common methods for the quantitation of the six major ergot alkaloids and their corresponding stereoisomers are HPLC based, using either fluorescence or mass spectrometric detection. Whereas these conventional detection methods measure each compound individually, a novel approach is to transfer all ergot alkaloids to one basic structure, which could be measured as a sum parameter.
Since all ergots contain a lysergic acid amide moiety and a differing peptide component, cleaving the molecule into a simple lysergic acid derivative, which could be quantified via either HPLC-FLD or MS/MS, is intended. To clean up the cleavage reaction mixture molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are a simple and effective way to separate the desired structure. Due to the selectivity of MIPs, an improved matrix separation is expected, which results in fewer interferences in the FLD and the possibility to measure samples with more complex matrices. When fully developed, the novel method could overcome some major drawbacks of the conventional detection methods. Higher throughput and the need for less well-trained personnel are just two advantages, that should lead to a quick and cheap quantitation of ergot alkaloids. First results of this project will be presented, funded by the German ZIM program (Zentrales Innovationsprogramm Mittelstand) of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.
How to trace the "cereal" killer? Fungal secondary metabolites, aka mycotoxins, pose a severe health risk for humans and animals. Since their occurrence in food, such as cereal products, is inevitable, the detection is of considerable importance. I want to demonstrate how the trace analysis of mycotoxins in foodstuff can be performed outside the laboratory. For this purpose, sensitive, antibody-based methods are combined with electrochemical smartphone-based detection.
Mycotoxigenic fungal pathogens Fusarium and Alternaria are a leading cause of loss in cereal production. On wheat-ears, they are confronted by bacterial antagonists such as pseudomonads.
Studies on these groups’ interactions often neglect the infection process’s temporal aspects and the associated priority effects. In the present study, the focus was on how the first colonizer affects the subsequent ones. In a climate chamber experiment, wheat-ears were successively inoculated with two different strains (Alternaria tenuissima At625, Fusarium graminearum Fg23, or Pseudomonas simiae Ps9).
Over three weeks, microbial abundances and mycotoxin concentrations were analyzed and visualized via Self Organizing Maps with Sammon Mapping (SOM-SM). All three strains revealed different characteristics and strategies to deal with co-inoculation: Fg23, as the first colonizer, suppressed the establishment of At625 and Ps9. Nevertheless, primary inoculation of At625 reduced all of the Fusarium toxins and stopped Ps9 from establishing. Ps9 showed priority effects in delaying and blocking the production of the fungal mycotoxins. The SOM-SM analysis visualized the competitive strengths: Fg23 ranked first, At625 second, Ps9 third. Our findings of species-specific priority effects in a natural environment and the role of the mycotoxins involved are relevant for developing biocontrol strategies.
Electrochemical methods make great promise to meet the demand for user-friendly on-site devices for monitoring important parameters. Food industry often runs own lab procedures, e.g., for mycotoxin analysis, but it is a major goal to simplify analysis, linking analytical methods with miniaturized technologies. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, with photometric detection of the horseradish peroxidase (HRP) substrate 3,3’,5,5’-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB), form a good basis for sensitive detection. To provide a straight-forward approach for the miniaturization of the detection step, we have studied the pitfalls of the electrochemical TMB detection. By cyclic voltammetry, it could be shown that TMB electrochemistry is strongly dependent on the pH and the electrode material.
It was found that screen-printed gold electrodes and a very low pH value (pH 1) are well-suited to perform the electrochemical detection of TMB, due to the reversible character of the redox reaction under these conditions. Under these conditions, a good signal stability over several measuring cycles is achieved, providing the basis for analyzing multiple samples. In contrast to this, for carbon screen-printed electrodes, it was found that the signal response has changed after the electrochemical reaction with TMB at pH 1. At moderately acidic conditions (pH 4), neither with carbon nor with gold electrodes a reproducible electrochemical detection of TMB could be achieved.
Based on these findings, we created a smartphone-based, electrochemical, immunomagnetic assay for the detection of ochratoxin A (OTA) and ergometrine in food samples. A competitive assay is performed on magnetic beads using HRP and TMB/H2O2 to generate the signal. Enzymatically oxidized TMB is quantified after addition of H2SO4 by amperometry with screen-printed gold electrodes in a custom-made wall-jet flow cell. The results are in good correlation with the established photometric detection method, providing a solid basis for sensing of further analytes in HRP-based assays using the newly developed miniaturized smartphone-based, electrochemical, immunomagnetic assay.