engleski

Toxic effects of co-exposure to mycotoxins

Animals and humans are continuously exposed to a variety of mycotoxins produced by food- contaminating molds. Despite the efforts of scientists to understand the mechanisms of mycotoxin toxicity, an insight has been gained for only 10 of the 400 known mycotoxins. Only a few human and animal diseases have been associated with mycotoxin exposure for certain. Research started with aflatoxins and continued with ochratoxins, trichotecenes, and fumonisins, but all these compounds were analyzed separately. Recently, some already known mycotoxins that had not been considered important, such as citrinin and sterigmatocystin, have returned in the focus of mycotoxin research because they seem to increase the toxic effect if combined with other mycotoxins. With highly sophisticated technology that can measure many mycotoxins in food at the same time, we have become aware of combined exposure but still do not understand the toxicological significance of extremely low concentrations of dozens of mycotoxins in food. So many mycotoxins in one place are expected to have additive effects in mammals, but there have been reports on antagonistic interaction between mycotoxins, which probably explains while we are still alive. Unfortunately, the requirement of the EU to switch research from in vivo to in vitro studies may result with unrealistic ideas about combined toxicity because cell cultures have different metabolism from mammals. Other difficulties involve a very high cost of mycotoxins and equipment, disagreement between scientists about the research end-points, and high variation in experimental designs. The last two issues stymie the comparison of the toxic effects of mycotoxin co-exposure.

ochratoxin A, citrinin, sterigmatocystin, trichotecenes, fumonisins

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