Mycotoxin-degradation profile of Rhodococcus strains

Mycotoxins are secondary fungal metabolites that may have mutagenic, carcinogenic, cytotoxic and endocrine disrupting effects. These substances frequently contaminate agricultural commodities despite efforts to prevent them, so successful detoxification tools are needed. The application of microorganisms to biodegrade mycotoxins is a novel strategy that shows potential for application in food and feed processing. In this study we investigated the mycotoxin degradation ability of thirty-two Rhodococcus strains on economically important mycotoxins: aflatoxin B-1, zearalenone, fumonisin B-1, T2 toxin and ochratoxin A, and monitored the safety of aflatoxin B-1 and zearalenone degradation processes and degradation products using previously developed toxicity profiling methods. Moreover, experiments were performed to analyse multi-mycotoxin-degrading ability of the best toxin degrader/detoxifier strains on aflatoxin B-1, zearalenone and T2 toxin mixtures. This enabled the safest and the most effective Rhodococcus strains to be selected, even for multi-mycotoxin degradation. We concluded that several Rhodococcus species are effective in the degradation of aromatic mycotoxins and their application in mycotoxin biodetoxification processes is a promising field of biotechnology. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

J. Bacteriol.

Here we report on the complete genome sequence of Cupriavidus basilensis OR16 NCAIM BO2487. The genome of strain OR16 contains 7,534 putative coding sequences, including a large set of xenobiotics-degrading genes and a unique glucose dehydrogenase gene that is absent from other Cupriavidus genomes

Effects of Grid Cell Size in Altitude Control in an Augmented Reality Terrain Display

Helicopter pilot performance in degraded visual conditions may be improved through sensor fusion and an augmented reality display. A simulator experiment with 12 participants was done to test the effect of synthetic terrain grid cell size and helicopter heave dynamics on task performance and control behaviour in a terrain-following hill-climb task. An increase in grid cell size lowered task performance and increased control activity due to reduced optical information. Slower heave dynamics decreased task performance and led to a more prospective control strategy. It was concluded that an effective AR terrain display for altitude control can be designed independently from the vehicle dynamics.Control & Simulatio

Erratum to: Occurrence of aflatoxin producing Aspergillus flavus isolates in maize kernel in Hungary

Climate change affects the occurrence of fungi and their mycotoxins in foods and feeds. A shift has recently been observed in the presence of aflatoxin producer Aspergillus spp. in Europe, with consequent aflatoxin contamination in agricultural commodities including maize in several European countries that have not faced with this problem before, including, e.g. Northern Italy, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia and Romania. Although aflatoxin contamination of agricultural products including maize is not treated as a serious threat to Hungarian agriculture due to climatic conditions, these observations led us to examine the mycobiota of maize kernels collected from Hungarian maize fields. Using a calmodulin sequence-based approach, A. flavus isolates have been identified in 63.5% of the maize fields examined in 2009 and 2010, and 18.8% of these isolates were found to be able to produce aflatoxins above 5 μg kg−1 on maize kernels as determined by ELISA, HPLC-FL, HPLC-MS analyses and SOS-Chromotest. These data indicate that aflatoxin producing Aspergilli are present in Hungarian agricultural fields, consequently climate change with elevated temperatures could lead to aflatoxin contamination of Hungarian agricultural products, too

Occurrence of aflatoxin producing Aspergillus flavus isolates in maize kernel in Hungary

Climate change affects the occurrence of fungi and their mycotoxins in foods and feeds. A shift has recently been observed in the presence of aflatoxin producer Aspergillus spp. in Europe, with consequent aflatoxin contamination in agricultural commodities including maize in several European countries that have not faced with this problem before, including, e.g. Northern Italy, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia and Romania. Although aflatoxin contamination of agricultural products including maize is not treated as a serious threat to Hungarian agriculture due to climatic conditions, these observations led us to examine the mycobiota of maize kernels collected from Hungarian maize fields. Using a calmodulin sequence-based approach, A. flavus isolates have been identified in 63.5% of the maize fields examined in 2009 and 2010, and 18.8% of these isolates were found to be able to produce aflatoxins above 5 μg kg−1 on maize kernels as determined by ELISA, HPLC-FL, HPLC-MS analyses and SOS-Chromotest. These data indicate that aflatoxin producing Aspergilli are present in Hungarian agricultural fields, consequently climate change with elevated temperatures could lead to aflatoxin contamination of Hungarian agricultural products, too