Abstract
Due to global climate change, mould strains causing problems with their mycotoxin production in the tropical–subtropical climate zone have also appeared in countries belonging to the temperate zone. Biodetoxification of crops and raw materials for food and feed industries including the aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) binding abilities of lactobacilli is of growing interest. Despite the massive quantities of papers dealing with AFB1-binding of lactobacilli, there are no data for microbial binding of the structurally similar mycotoxin sterigmatocystin (ST). In addition, previous works focused on the detection of AFB1 in extracts, while in this case, analytical determination was necessary for the microbial biomass as well. To test binding capacities, a rapid instrumental analytical method using high-performance liquid chromatography was developed and applied for measurement of AFB1 and ST in the biomass of the cultured bacteria and its supernatant, containing the mycotoxin fraction bound by the bacteria and the fraction that remained unbound, respectively. For our AFB1 and ST adsorption studies, 80 strains of the genus Lactobacillus were selected. Broths containing 0.2 µg/mL AFB1and ST were inoculated with the Lactobacillus test strains. Before screening the strains for binding capacities, optimisation of the experiment parameters was carried out. Mycotoxin binding was detectable from a germ count of 107 cells/mL. By studying the incubation time of the cells with the mycotoxins needed for mycotoxin-binding, co-incubation for 10 min was found sufficient. The presence of mycotoxins did not affect the growth of bacterial strains. Three strains of L. plantarum had the best AFB1 adsorption capacities, binding nearly 10% of the mycotoxin present, and in the case of ST, the degree of binding was over 20%.
Highlights
Mycotoxins are secondary metabolic products produced by moulds common in the food chain, causing major economic losses and becoming sources of public health threats
The effects of cell concentration, incubation time with the mycotoxins on the mycotoxin binding capacities, and the effect of the mycotoxin itself on the cell counts of the lactobacilli had to be considered before the screening
Instrumental analysis of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) by high-performance liquid chromatography is well described in the literature, and recent work [25] presents a robust method for simultaneous quantification of several aflatoxins from fungal cultures, AFB1 was found to be sufficient to be detected at a single wavelength of 365 nm
Summary
Mycotoxins are secondary metabolic products produced by moulds common in the food chain, causing major economic losses and becoming sources of public health threats. These mycotoxins have a number of adverse health effects in humans and animals. They can be carcinogenic, immune-damaging, teratogenic, Toxins 2020, 12, 756; doi:10.3390/toxins12120756 www.mdpi.com/journal/toxins. A mould can produce a variety of mycotoxins, and these compounds can amplify the harmful effects of each other. Some 300 compounds have been recognised as mycotoxins of which around thirty are considered as a threat to human or animal health [2]
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