Abstract
Nowadays, contamination of agricultural commodities with fungi and their mycotoxins is one of the most annoying with regard to food safety and pose serious health risk. Therefore, there is a requisite to propose suitable mitigation strategies to reduce the contamination of fungi and mycotoxins in agricultural commodities. In the present study, combinational inhibitory effect of Hedychium spicatum L. essential oil (HSEO) and radiation was established on growth rate, production of deoxynivalenol (DON) and zearalenone (ZEA) by Fusarium graminearum in maize grains. The HSEO was obtained from rhizomes by hydrodistillation technique and chemical composition was revealed by GC-MS analysis. A total of 48 compounds were identified and major compounds were 1,8-cineole (23.15%), linalool (12.82%), and β-pinene (10.06%). The discrete treatments of HSEO and radiation were effective in reducing the fungal growth rate and mycotoxins content, and the complete reduction was noticed at 3.15 mg/g of HSEO and 6 kGy of radiation. Response surface methodology (RSM) was applied to evaluate the combinational inhibitory effect of HSEO and radiation treatments on fungal growth rate and mycotoxins content. A total of 13 experiments were designed with distinct doses of HSEO and radiation by central composite design (CCD) of Stat-Ease Design-Expert software. In combinational approach, complete reductions of fungal growth, DON, and ZEA content were noticed at 1.89 mg/g of HSEO and 4.12 kGy of radiation treatments. The optimized design concluded that combinational treatments of HSEO and radiation were much more effective in reducing the fungal growth and mycotoxins content compared to their discrete treatments (p < 0.05). Responses of the design were assessed by second-order polynomial regression analysis and found that quadratic model was well fitted. The optimized design has larger F-value and adequate precision, smaller p-value, decent regression coefficients (R2) and found statistically significant (p < 0.05). In addition, correlation matrix, normal plot residuals, Box-Cox, and actual vs. predicted plots were endorsed that optimized design was accurate and appropriate. The proposed combinational decontamination technique could be highly applicable in agriculture and food industry to safeguard the food and feed products from fungi and mycotoxins.
Highlights
Mycotoxins are toxic secondary metabolites produced by filamentous fungi on agricultural products, which cause acute or chronic toxic effects in farm animals and humans called mycotoxicosis (Schirone et al, 2016; Du et al, 2017)
Fusarium graminearum (MTCC 1893) capable for the synthesis of DON and ZEA was obtained from Microbial Type Culture Collection and Gene Bank (MTCC), India, and grown on Sabouraud dextrose agar (SDA) for 7 days at 28◦C
The chemical composition of Hedychium spicatum L. essential oil (HSEO) was revealed by GC-mass spectra (MS) and a total of 48 compounds were identified constituting to 96.84% of total weight (Table 1)
Summary
Mycotoxins are toxic secondary metabolites produced by filamentous fungi on agricultural products, which cause acute or chronic toxic effects in farm animals and humans called mycotoxicosis (Schirone et al, 2016; Du et al, 2017). The contamination of agricultural products with fungi occurs during pre-and post-harvesting stages due to inappropriate and unhygienic practices (Bernhoft et al, 2012). The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations estimate that ∼25% of agricultural products are contaminated with fungi and mycotoxins worldwide (Pitt and Hockings, 2009). The incidence of fungi and mycotoxins contamination in agricultural products have become one of the foremost issues of farmers, food industry, and government concerning the food safety (Annunziata et al, 2017; Udomkun et al, 2017). International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has studied the carcinogenic property of DON and ZEA in laboratory animals and classified as the group 3 carcinogens (IARC, 1999)
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