Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2025 Sep;76(3):315-328.
doi: 10.1007/s42977-025-00258-2. Epub 2025 May 15.

Molecular insights into ochratoxin A biodegradation

Renáta Ábrahám  1 , Erzsébet Baka  2 , Mohammed Al-Nussairawi  3 , András Táncsics  1 , Milán Farkas  1 , István Nagy  4 , Balázs Kriszt  5 , Mátyás Cserháti  1
Affiliations
Review

Molecular insights into ochratoxin A biodegradation

Renáta Ábrahám et al. Biol Futur. 2025 Sep.

Abstract

Most of the agricultural products can potentially be exposed to mycotoxins-especially to ochratoxin A (OTA)-, which may cause foodborne diseases such as renal toxicity and notable economic losses worldwide. Biological detoxification is the most promising method to control OTA contamination. To provide a comprehensive understanding, this review summarizes the biodegradation pathways of OTA and discusses microbes capable of degrading OTA and their detoxification strategies. A detailed analysis of potentially useful enzymes for food and feed detoxification will be reported, highlighting specific enzymatic strategies identified in scientific literature. A comparative analysis of the functional capabilities of different OTA hydrolases demonstrates significant variation in degradation efficiency, thus the optimization of these enzymes is essential for the development of effective detoxification strategies. This review underscores the potential of harnessing these microorganisms and their enzymes for mitigating the toxic effects of OTA in contaminated environment and examining the essential requirements that must be met for the successful application of OTA degrading enzyme technology for promoting public health and food safety.

Keywords: Detoxification; Enzyme technology; Microbial degradation; Mycotoxin; Ochratoxin A.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Conflict of interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

References

    1. Abarca ML, Bragulat MR, Castellá G, Cabañes FJ (2019) Impact of some environmental factors on growth and ochratoxin A production by Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus welwitschiae. Int J Food Microbiol 291:10–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2018.11.001 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Abrunhosa L, Paterson RRM, Venâncio A (2010) Biodegradation of Ochratoxin A for food and feed decontamination. Toxins 2(5):1078–1099. https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins2051078 - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. Abrunhosa L, Inês A, Rodrigues AI, Guimarães A, Pereira VL, Parpot P et al (2014) Biodegradation of ochratoxin A by Pediococcus parvulus isolated from Douro wines. Int J Food Microbiol 188:45–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2014.07.019 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Aldred D, Magan N (2004) Prevention strategies for trichothecenes. Toxicol Lett 153(1):165–171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.toxlet.2004.04.031 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Ali N, Muñoz K, Degen GH (2017) Ochratoxin A and its metabolites in urines of German adults—an assessment of variables in biomarker analysis. Toxicol Lett 275:19–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.toxlet.2017.04.013 - DOI - PubMed

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources