Advances in the development of biosensors for mycotoxins in Latin-America

H. FERNÁNDEZ

Carlos Paz, Córdoba, Argentina

Conferencia; Myco-globe Argentina 2006 - Conference; 2006

International Society for Mycotoxicology

Mycotoxins are organic compounds produced by fungi as secondary metabolites. The ingestion of mycotoxins can become a serious human health risk, with carcinogenic, teratogenic and mutagenic effects. The agricultural commodities, particularly, a wide variety of crops, both in the field and post-harvest, are the main source of production of mycotoxins in the food chains for humans and animals. Mycotoxins are normally found in low concentrations, which make difficult their detection.             At present, different chromatographic techniques have been used for their determination. However, considering the great worldwide attention that food industry is paying to the food quality control, it is very important to develop fast and economical new techniques for mycotoxin determinations. Although biosensors development for mycotoxin detection has been initiated in Europe and United Stated of North America some years ago, few studies have been done in Latin America so far. Particularly, the Electroanalytical Group of the Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto has begun to study the electrochemical behaviour of some electroactive mycotoxins of Alternaria alternata, Aspergillus and Fusarium genus with the purpose of generating the bases and knowledge for the development of analytical methodology supported in electroanalytical techniques. Thus, different electroanalytical methodologies have been proposed, mainly those based on potential pulse techniques, for the determination of mycotoxins from bulk solution as well as from adsorbed analytes onto the surface of different electrode materials. Limits of detection in the order of ppb have been found through adsorptive methods. Recently, some studies performed in our laboratory have shown that it is possible to obtain a considerable improvement in the AME electrochemical signal when its oxidation is accomplished on dodecanethiol self-assembled monolayers on gold electrodes. Higher sensitivity and lower detection limits are obtained through these nano materials when compared with electrochemistry on conventional electrodes. Analytical values similar to those of the chromatographic techniques were obtained.