Fungal toxic secondary metabolites in foods and feeds: recent sustainable analytical techniques and innovative preventative and remediation strategies for their formation and toxicity

Fungal pathogens and their toxins in food and surface water threaten food and water security, which is already a serious problem in many parts of the world, especially in developing countries. Further, they pose a threat to human and animal health, placing an undue burden not only on health but also on the socioeconomics of society and marginalized communities especially feel this burden. In order to attain the sustainable development goals of zero hunger and good health and well-being these classes of toxins, therefore, need special consideration. Secondary metabolites produced by the fungi, such as mycotoxins, are of interest because of their known detrimental impact and due to their widespread in food as well as their history of poisoning records of wild and domestic mammals, birds, and humans, which have been well documented over the past one century. The broad impacts of these toxins require integrated analytical solutions and strategies. It is thus critical to develop cost-effective methods for sampling, analysis, and detection of these known toxins and innovative preventive and remediation strategies to ensure consumer safety and compliance with regulatory standards. There is a clear need to develop green and stable adsorption materials to address the challenges of food spoilage and thus inhibit or retard the growth of spoilage or pathogenic microorganisms. These strategies need to be sustainable, green, stable, economical, and more effective than existing techniques. Thus, new mitigation strategies must be developed to ameliorate the consequences of harmful fungal pathogens and their secondary metabolites, especially with a focus on emerging fungal secondary metabolites. In particular, the use of nanotechnology could bring an interesting solution to the problems of fungal toxins with its attractive properties. These properties can be employed to develop highly adsorptive materials capable of inhibiting and removing the growth of fungi and developing nano-sensors that can be integrated with ICT solutions.

Within the context of climate change, it is crucial to develop models to predict the climatic factors that trigger the production of mycotoxins.

Proposed topics:

• Green extraction techniques for fungal secondary metabolites in foods and plants;
• Green separation techniques for fungal secondary metabolites
• Sustainable, cost-effective detection methods: Including nano-sensors, Point of use affordable diagnostic kits
• Emerging preventive and remediation strategies
• Modelling and ICT solutions