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. 2019 Jun 4;11(6):317.
doi: 10.3390/toxins11060317.

The Influence of Processing Parameters on the Mitigation of Deoxynivalenol during Industrial Baking

David Stadler  1 , Francesca Lambertini  2 , Lydia Woelflingseder  3 , Heidi Schwartz-Zimmermann  4 , Doris Marko  5 , Michele Suman  6 , Franz Berthiller  7 , Rudolf Krska  8   9
Affiliations

The Influence of Processing Parameters on the Mitigation of Deoxynivalenol during Industrial Baking

David Stadler et al. Toxins (Basel). .

Abstract

Deoxynivalenol (DON), a frequent contaminant of flour, can be partially degraded by baking. It is not clear: (i) How the choice of processing parameter (i.e., ingredients, leavening, and baking conditions) affects DON degradation and thus (ii) how much DON can be degraded during the large-scale industrial production of bakery products. Crackers, biscuits, and bread were produced from naturally contaminated flour using different processing conditions. DON degradation during baking was quantified with the most accurate analytical methodology available for this Fusarium toxin, which is based on liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Depending on the processing conditions, 0-21%, 4-16%, and 2-5% DON were degraded during the production of crackers, biscuits, and bread, respectively. A higher NaHCO3 concentration, baking time, and baking temperature caused higher DON degradation. NH4HCO3, yeast, vinegar, and sucrose concentration as well as leavening time did not enhance DON degradation. In vitro cell viability assays confirmed that the major degradation product isoDON is considerably less toxic than DON. This proves for the first time that large-scale industrial baking results in partial detoxification of DON, which can be enhanced by process management.

Keywords: LC-MS/MS; decontamination; design of experiment; detoxification; food processing; mass spectrometry; mycotoxins; thermal degradation; trichothecenes.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Display of the influence of baking conditions on the appearance of biscuits (top), bread (middle) and crackers (bottom).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Increase of the deoxynivalenol (DON) degradation products isoDON and norDONs A-C during the production of biscuits using different processing conditions. The increase was determined as a ratio of the molal concentration of the DON degradation products to the molal concentration of DON resulting from the natural contamination of the flour. The experimental trials were listed according to the NaHCO3 concentration, baking temperature, and baking time. Error bars represent the process standard deviation.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Top: Effects plot, which shows the change of the sum of the DON degradation products when a processing factor is varied from its lowest to its highest value and all other factors are kept at their averages, which was obtained for the design of the experiment (DoE) data set in pilot-scale biscuit making experiments. Error bars represent the confidence interval corresponding to a 95% confidence level. “*” between two processing factors indicates a synergistic effect, which cannot be explained solely by addition of degradation caused by the two parameters individually. Bottom: Predictive factor effect plots, which show the influence of the following processing parameters on the deoxynivalenol (DON) degradation during the biscuit production: (i) NaHCO3 (left), (ii) baking temperature (middle), and (iii) baking time (right). The dotted lines represent the confidence interval corresponding to a 95% confidence level.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Increase of the deoxynivalenol (DON) degradation products isoDON and norDONs B-C during the production of bread using different processing conditions. The increase was determined as a ratio of the molal concentration of the DON degradation products to the molal concentration of DON resulting from the natural contamination of the flour. The experimental trials were listed according to baking temperature, baking time, and sucrose concentration. Error bars represent the process standard deviation.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Top: Effects plot, which shows the change of the sum of the DON degradation products when a processing factor is varied from its lowest to its highest value and all other factors are kept at their averages, which was obtained for the design of the experiment (DoE) data set in pilot-scale bread making experiments. Error bars represent the confidence interval corresponding to a 95% confidence level. Bottom: Predictive factor effect plots, which show the influence of the following processing parameters on the deoxynivalenol (DON) degradation during the biscuit production: (i) Baking time (left), (ii) baking temperature (middle), and (iii) sucrose concentration (right). The dotted lines represent the confidence interval corresponding to a 95% confidence level.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Increase of the deoxynivalenol (DON) degradation products isoDON and norDONs A-C during the production of crackers using different processing conditions. The increase was determined as a ratio of the molal concentration of the DON degradation products to the molal concentration of DON resulting from the natural contamination of the flour. The experimental trials were listed according to the NaHCO3 concentration, baking time, and baking temperature. Error bars represent the process standard deviation.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Top: Effects plot, which shows the change of the sum of the DON degradation products when a processing factor is varied from its lowest to its highest value and all other factors are kept at their averages, which was obtained for the design of the experiment (DoE) data set in pilot-scale bread making experiments. Error bars represent the confidence interval corresponding to a 95% confidence level. “*” between two processing factors indicates a synergistic effect, which cannot be explained solely by addition of degradation caused by the two parameters individually. Bottom: Predictive factor effect plots, which show the influence of the following processing parameters on the deoxynivalenol (DON) degradation during the biscuit production: (i) NaHCO3 concentration (left) and (ii) baking time (right). The dotted lines represent the confidence interval corresponding to a 95% confidence level.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Cell viability of human colorectal adenocarcinoma cells (HT-29) (left) and non-tumorigenic human colon epithelial cells (HCEC) (right) after 24 h of incubation with different concentrations of deoxynivalenol (DON) and isoDON. The concentration at which cell viability was reduced by 30% (IC30) was calculated from a dose response curve fitted to the individual data points (×).
Figure 9
Figure 9
Structure of iso-deoxynivalenol (isoDON) (left) and DON (right). The C-7 to C-10 atoms of the trichothecene backbone are highlighted.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Comparison between the deoxynivalenol (DON) degradation reported in recent literature studies [10,11,12,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29] and the DON degradation values determined in this study under different processing conditions. Each dot represents one baking experiment.
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