Biological Detoxification of Mycotoxins: Current Status and Future Advances

Abstract

Mycotoxins are highly toxic metabolites produced by fungi that pose a huge threat to human and animal health. Contamination of food and feed with mycotoxins is a worldwide issue, which leads to huge financial losses, annually. Decades of research have developed various approaches to degrade mycotoxins, among which the biological methods have been proved to have great potential and advantages. This review provides an overview on the important advances in the biological removal of mycotoxins over the last decade. Here, we provided further insight into the chemical structures and the toxicity of the main mycotoxins. The innovative strategies including mycotoxin degradation by novel probiotics are summarized in an in-depth discussion on potentialities and limitations. We prospected the promising future for the development of multifunctional approaches using recombinant enzymes and microbial consortia for the simultaneous removal of multiple mycotoxins.

Keywords: biodegradation; microbial consortia; mycotoxins; probiotics; recombinant enzyme.

Figure 1

Schematic representation of mycotoxin detoxification methods. The physical methods mainly include thermal process, irradiation, and adsorption techniques, while the chemical methods involve in the treatment with acid/alkali solution and ozonation. The major mechanism of biological detoxification involves in the surface binding by extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), degradation by enzyme and cellular metabolism.

Figure 2

The mechanism of heterogeneous expression of mycotoxin degradation enzyme (MDE).