Universidade do Minho. Departamento de Engenharia Biológica (DEB)
Abstract
ICFC 2017 - International Conference on Food Contaminants (Book of Abstracts)Mycotoxins are toxic secondary metabolites
produced by fungi that are found worldwide
in many food products. They are a diverse group of chemical compounds that possess a
multiplicity of toxic properties and affect human and farm animal health. Additionally, they
cause significant economic losses.
The problem of mycotoxins results mainly from fungal
growth on crop cultures at the pre
-
or post
-
harvest
stages. Implicated fungi belong
mostly
to
Aspergillus
,
Penicillium
,
Fusarium
,
Alternaria
and
Claviceps
genera. For these reasons,
mycotoxins presence in foods should be monitored, and their levels reduced as low as
technologically possible. In recent years
,
several biological solutions have been studied and
developed to mitigate the adverse effects of myco
toxins. These strategies can be divided
into three main type of action: i) Biocontrol, in this case, defined as the control of
mycotoxigenic fungal growth by other microorganisms; ii) Adsorption, which refers to the
use of microorganism cells to bind mycot
oxins; and iii) Biotransformation, when
microorganisms or pure enzymes are used to degrade or transform mycotoxins into non
-
toxic compounds. This presentation will revise some of the main achievements done in this
field in the last years and present the wo
rk done at the Centre of Biological Engineering
related to this thematic. Presented topics will include: i) The inhibition of
Aspergillus
flavus
and
Penicillium nordicum
growth, as the production of aflatoxins and ochratoxin A
by lactic acid bacteria and t
heir organic acids; ii) The adsorption of mycotoxins by
microorganisms isolated from Kefir grains; and iii) The biodegradation of ochratoxin A by
Pediococcus parvulusUMINHO/BPD/51/2015 from project
UID/BIO/04469/2013 financed by FCT/MEC (OE). This study was supported by FCT under the scope of the
strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684); of BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) funded y European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020 -Programa peracional Regional do Norte; and under the scope of the projects RECI/BBB-BI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio