Mycotoxins produced by Aspergillus species, e.g. carcinogenic aflatoxins, genotoxic patulin, and nephrotoxic ochratoxin A, represent a major health threat to humans and livestock. These mycotoxins are known to affect a wide range of foods and drinks such as maize, coffee, wine, peanuts, dairy products, etc. The perceptible effects of climate changes on mycotoxin production in crops throw new light upon the economic and health risks of these notorious fungal secondary metabolites with the unprecedented detection of aflatoxins in Northern Europe in certain crops.

To assist experts working in all aspects of feed and food production, this Frontiers in Microbiology Research Topic will:

(a) summarize the current knowledge on Aspergillus-derived mycotoxins which enter the feed and food chain
(b) present important and inspiring new aspects of on-going research in this field.

To reach this highly worthy aim, high-quality original research and review papers are welcome in the broadest spectrum of mycotoxin-oriented food microbiology linked research regarding the Aspergilli. This will include:

(i) mycotoxins in fungus-host plant/crop interactions
(ii) the deleterious physiological effects of mycotoxins on domestic animals and humans
(iii) detection and identification of mycotoxins and mycotoxin producing fungi in the feed and food chain
(iv) hazard analysis, risk assessment and control of mycotoxins including the selection of critical control points and determination of appropriate interventions
(v) detection, evaluation and minimization of novel risk factors emerging today
(vi) modeling studies on climate change and fungi/mycotoxins compared to narrative methods.

We will also seek original research and a critical review of drinking water contamination with these hazardous mycotoxins. Rational design of new antifungal and mycotoxin production suppressing agents, novel food microbiology, biocontrol based technologies, and original risk analysis approaches leading to more effective mycotoxin control strategies will be of great interest. Collection and appropriate mathematical processing of large biological (e.g. metagenomic, transcriptomic) or analytical (e.g. mycotoxins and mycotoxin producers in various value chains) data sets are also favored. Other fungal taxa that produce the typical Aspergillus mycotoxins, especially under the new climatic conditions, will also be of interest.

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