Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Emerging mycotoxin level surveillance in traditional, novel and transf...
Coordinator
Standard protocols (ISO), whole genome sequencing (WGS), computational methodologies, and MetaOmic approaches (metagenomics, metatrascriptomics, metabolomics, lipidomics, culturomics and phenomics) will be applied for the identification and characterization of the new and (re)-emerging chemical and biological hazards in traditional products, related to climate changes, microbial evolution, and modifications in the manufacturing processes. Omics techniques will also be applied to study factors affecting the survival and the stress resistance mechanisms of pathogens and antimicrobial resistant (AMR) bacteria during food processing and shelf life. In addition, a CAD-based automatic feature recognition procedure will be developed for hygienic design of food machinery, as a prerequisite for GMP in food production.
New/existing materials will be characterised in terms of migration studies of both intentionally and non-intentionally added substances, small-/micro/nano- plastics, metal nanoparticles, food packaging suitability and growth of mycotoxigenic moulds, even after being subjected to innovative/emerging processing technologies (e.g., cold gas plasma, HPP). Potential antimicrobial properties will also be assessed, particularly for developed functional packaging systems. The safety of new materials used as FCM, from recyclable sources, bioplastics or derived from by-products, will be assessed in collaboration with Spoke 2
Omics protocols to evaluate food safety
Report on RA of Italian traditional foods (M36)
Data on moulds, their mycotoxigenic potential and relevant mycotoxins occurrence in developed materials (M30)
Mycotoxins are a serious problem for food transformation industries. Their occurrence is closely related to climate changes and, in the last period, the world warming conditions favouring mould colonization in usual food chain, in an unusual world location. Therefore, the accumulation of these toxicants rises up very quickly. The synergic effects of mycotoxins, their toxicity on human health with a higher impact on weak groups of population like infants, children and elderly people may produce severe risks on gastrointestinal, immunological and respiratory systems. Some of the underestimated problems related to mycotoxin harmfulness are the relatively limited number of known these toxicants and the restricted number of foods regulated by international agencies for food safety. Some mycotoxins like beauvericin, enniatins, etc. are considered as emerging mycotoxins and, at the moment, poorly regulated and evaluated by safety agency. It is important to update databases with values on the occurrence of these emerging mycotoxins in as many transformed foods as possible, to establish the base for their risk assessment and following risk management.
Collect a significative sample of traditional and/or novel foods to establish the real risks related to emerging mycotoxins. To do this, it is important to optimize the current analytical procedures to these food matrixes and validate the same ones for widest conventional analytical protocols like HPLC-DAD, GC-MS or HPLC-MS. The activities require to receive samples of food matrixes from market or from transformer industries and build a shared database with private food companies so to implement their in-house food safety procedures. A holistic approach that involves more key players, analytical skills, food technologists and microbiologists may be useful to evaluate the risk before and after modulation of food processes addressed to reduce and minimize emerging mycotoxins. Of course, the already regulated mycotoxins like aflatoxins, ochratoxins, DON etc. will be added to the panel of the analysed toxicants.
