Food safety is a significant concern for governments, legislators, and consumers worldwide. Mycotoxins are toxic secondary metabolites produced by fungi than can grow in the plant before or after harvest. The mold can also proliferate during transport and storage under non-controlled conditions and the resulting toxins will contaminate food and feed, with a negative impact on the health of humans and animals and generating significant economic losses to agriculture and industry.<br/>In order to monitor the presence of mycotoxins in foods we have developed biomimetic sensors and biosensors using antibodies, peptide mimetics or recombinant antibody fragments (rAb) selected by phage display techniques, as recognition elements for the analysis of toxins of particular incidence in Mediterranean countries such as, zearalenone (ZON), fumonisin B1 or HT-2.<br/>The fitness-to-purpose of the novel binders has been confirmed with phage-based and mimopeptide-based ELISAs. The peptides have been fused by genetic engineering to luminescent proteins, providing simple cost-effective alternatives to the traditional immunoassays that use labelled secondary antibodies for the determination of the selected analytes. Alternatively, we have explored the application of the SpyTag/SpyCatcher system, in combination with fluorescent proteins and rAbs, to the analysis of the HT-2 toxin. The assays have been implemented on magnetic, gold or upconversion (nano)particles to improve the sensitivity. The novel sensing platforms have shown excellent selectivity to the selected mycotoxins when applied to the determination of the target compounds in food samples, and were validated using certified reference materials, or reference chromatographic techniques.

Innovative detection of mycotoxins based on luminescent sensing coupled to biological or biomimetic molecular receptors

Fall 2022 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch in mid-September.

ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.