Determination of zearalenone in corn based on a biotin-avidin amplified enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay

An automatic and smart platform for rapid detection of cadmium and lead simultaneously in rice using triple-amplified chemiluminescence immunoassay

Rapid detection of trace ions is urgently needed for large-scale screening to ensure food safety. This study developed an innovative and automatic strategy, based on a smart-designed platform for rapid detection of cadmium and lead in rice. As bridge antibody, the antigen was conjugated with goat anti-mouse immunoglobulin G labeled alkaline phosphatase. Meanwhile, a biotin-streptavidin system was introduced to micromagnetic particles, thus providing a triple-amplified chemiluminescence immunoassay with high sensitivity, accuracy and specificity. The limits of detection for cadmium and lead were 0.06 and 1.00 ng mL-1, respectively, within 30 min. The recoveries ranged from 89.81 to 114.92 %, with relative standard deviations less than 9.2 %. The results obtained agreed with those of inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry and certified reference materials. Additionally, the auto-operation avoided human errors as well as being convenient, fast, automatic and high-throughput. Therefore, this smart platform can be applied for large-scale Cd2+ and Pb2+ screening.

3D flower-like ceria silver co-doped zinc oxide catalyst assembled by nanorod for electrochemical sensing of zearalenone in food samples

To ensure food safety and quality, the development of rapid detection of mycotoxins using sensitive and accurate methods is essential. Zearalenone is one of the mycotoxins found in cereals, and its toxicity poses a serious risk to humans. For this concern, a simple ceria silver co doped zinc oxide (Ce-Ag/ZnO) catalyst was prepared by coprecipitation approach. The physical properties of the catalyst were characterized by XRD, FTIR, XPS, FESEM, and TEM. The Ce-Ag/ZnO catalyst was used as an electrode material for the detection of ZEN in food samples due to its synergistic effect and high catalytic activity. The sensor exhibits good catalytic performance with a detection limit of 0.26 µg/mL. Moreover, the efficiency of the prepared sensor was confirmed by selectivity in interference studies and real-time analysis in food samples. Our research is an essential technique for using trimetallic heterostructures to study the construction of sensors.

"Green" Extraction and On-Site Rapid Detection of Aflatoxin B1, Zearalenone and Deoxynivalenol in Corn, Rice and Peanut

The common mycotoxins in polluted grains are aflatoxin B1(AFB1), zearalenone (ZEN) and deoxynivalenol (DON). Because of the potential threat to humans and animals, it is necessary to detect mycotoxin contaminants rapidly. At present, later flow immunoassay (LFIA) is one of the most frequently used methods for rapid analysis. However, multistep sample pretreatment processes and organic solvents are also required to extract mycotoxins from grains. In this study, we developed a one-step and "green" sample pretreatment method without using organic solvents. By combining with LFIA test strips and a handheld detection device, an on-site method for the rapid detection of AFB1, ZEN and DON was developed. The LODs for AFB1, ZEN and DON in corn are 0.90 μg/kg, 7.11 μg/kg and 10.6 μg/kg, respectively, and the working ranges are from 1.25 μg/kg to 40 μg/kg, 20 μg/kg to 2000 μg/kg and 35 μg/kg to 1500 μg/kg, respectively. This method has been successfully applied to the detection of AFB1, ZEN and DON in corn, rice and peanut, with recoveries of 89 ± 3%-106 ± 3%, 86 ± 2%-108 ± 7% and 90 ± 2%-106 ± 10%, respectively. The detection results for the AFB1, ZEN and DON residues in certified reference materials by this method were in good agreement with their certificate values.

Recent advances in the highly sensitive determination of zearalenone residues in water and environmental resources with electrochemical biosensors

Zearalenone (ZEN), a significant class of mycotoxin which is considered as a xenoestrogen, permits, similar to natural estrogens, it's binding to the receptors of estrogen resulting in various reproductive diseases especially, hormonal misbalance. ZEN has toxic effects on human and animal health as a result of its teratogenicity, carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, nephrotoxicity, genotoxicity, and immunotoxicity. To ensure water and environmental resources safety, precise, rapid, sensitive, and reliable analytical and conventional methods can be progressed for the determination of toxins such as ZEN. Different selective nanomaterial-based compounds are used in conjunction with different analytical detection approaches to achieve this goal. The current review demonstrates the state-of-the-art advances of nanomaterial-based electrochemical sensing assays including various sensing, apta-sensing and, immunosensing studies to the highly sensitive determination of various ZEN families. At first, a concise study of the occurrence, structure, toxicity, legislations, and distribution of ZEN in monitoring has been performed. Then, different conventional and clinical techniques and procedures to sensitive and selective sensing techniques have been reviewed and the efficient comparison of them has been thoroughly discussed. This study has also summarized the salient features and the requirements for applying various sensing and biosensing platforms and diverse immobilization techniques in ZEN detection. Finally, we have defined the performance of several electrochemical sensors applying diverse recognition elements couples with nanomaterials fabricated using various recognition elements coupled with nanomaterials (metal NPs, metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs), graphene, and CNT) the issues limiting development, and the forthcoming tasks in successful construction with the applied nanomaterials.

Immunoassays for rapid mycotoxin detection: state of the art

The widespread presence of mycotoxins in nature not only poses a huge health risk to people in terms of food but also causes incalculable losses to the agricultural economy. As a rapidly developing technology in recent years, the mycotoxin immunoassay technology has approached or even surpassed the traditional chromatography technology in some aspects. Using this approach, the lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) has attracted the interest of researchers due to its user-friendly operation, short time consumption, little interference, low cost, and ability to process a large number of samples at the same time. This paper provides an overview of the immunogens commonly used for mycotoxins, the development of antibodies, and the use of gold nanoparticles, quantum dots, carbon nanoparticles, enzymes, and fluorescent microsphere labeling materials for the construction of LFIAs to improve detection sensitivity. The analytical performance, detection substrates, detection limits or detection ranges of LFIA for mycotoxins have been listed in recent years. Finally, we describe the future outlook for the field, predicting that portable mobile detection devices and simultaneous quantitative detection of multiple mycotoxins is one of the important directions for future development.

Novel fluorescent ELISA for the sensitive detection of zearalenone based on H2O2-sensitive quantum dots for signal transduction

A direct competitive fluorescent enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was developed for the detection of zearalenone (ZEN) using ZEN labeled catalase (CAT) as a competing antigen with H2O2-sensitive CdTe quantum dots (QDs) for signal transduction. The novel fluorescent ELISA showed very high sensitivity for ZEN detection because it combined the high catalytic activity of CAT to H2O2 and H2O2-sensitive property of QDs. Under optimal conditions, the developed method showed a good dynamic linear detection for ZEN in the range of 2.4pg/mL to 1.25ng/mL with a detection limit of 4.1pg/mL. The median inhibition concentration (IC50) of ZEN was 75pg/mL, which was approximately 17-fold lower than that of horseradish peroxidase-based conventional ELISA. Moreover, our developed method also showed a high reproducibility and an excellent selectivity. In brief, the novel fluorescent ELISA shows great potential for the sensitive and economic detection of mycotoxins and other analytes in food analysis, clinical diagnosis and environmental monitoring.

Analytical methods for determination of mycotoxins: An update (2009-2014)

Mycotoxins are a problematic and toxic group of small organic molecules that are produced as secondary metabolites by several fungal species that colonise crops. They lead to contamination at both the field and postharvest stages of food production with a considerable range of foodstuffs affected, from coffee and cereals, to dried fruit and spices. With wide ranging structural diversity of mycotoxins, severe toxic effects caused by these molecules and their high chemical stability the requirement for robust and effective detection methods is clear. This paper builds on our previous review and summarises the most recent advances in this field, in the years 2009-2014 inclusive. This review summarises traditional methods such as chromatographic and immunochemical techniques, as well as newer approaches such as biosensors, and optical techniques which are becoming more prevalent. A section on sampling and sample treatment has been prepared to highlight the importance of this step in the analytical methods. We close with a look at emerging technologies that will bring effective and rapid analysis out of the laboratory and into the field.

Developments in mycotoxin analysis: an update for 2013-2014

This review highlights developments in the determination of mycotoxins over a period between mid-2013 and mid-2014. It continues in the format of the previous articles of this series, emphasising on analytical methods to determine aflatoxins, Alternaria toxins, ergot alkaloids, fumonisins, ochratoxins, patulin, trichothecenes and zearalenone. The importance of proper sampling and sample preparation is briefly addressed in a dedicated section, while another chapter summarises new methods used to analyse botanicals and spices. As LC-MS/MS instruments are becoming more and more widespread in the determination of multiple classes of mycotoxins, another section is focusing on such newly developed multi-mycotoxin methods. While the wealth of published methods during the 12 month time span makes it impossible to cover every single one, this exhaustive review nevertheless aims to address and briefly discuss the most important developments and trends.

Quantum-dot submicrobead-based immunochromatographic assay for quantitative and sensitive detection of zearalenone

Mycotoxin pollutants are commonly related to cereal products and cause fatal threats in food safety, and therefore require simple and sensitive detection. In this work, quantum-dot (QD) submicrobeads (QBs) were synthesized by encapsulating CdSe/ZnS QDs using the microemulsion technique. The resultant QBs, with approximately 2800 times brighter luminescence than the corresponding QDs, were explored as novel fluorescent probes in the immunochromatographic assay (ICA) for sensitive and quantitative detection of zearalenone (ZEN) in corns. Various parameters that influenced the sensitivity and stability of QB-based ICA (QB-ICA) were investigated and optimized. The optimal QB-ICA exhibits good dynamic linear detection for ZEN over the range of 0.125 ng/mL to 10 ng/mL with a median inhibitory concentration of 1.01±0.09 ng/mL (n=3). The detection limits for ZEN in a standard solution and real corn sample (dilution ratio of 1:30) are 0.0625 ng/mL and 3.6 µg/kg, respectively, which is much better than that of a previously reported gold nanoparticle-based ICA method. Forty-six natural corn samples are assayed using both QB-ICA and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The two methods show a highly significant correlation (R(2)=0.92). Nine ZEN-contaminated samples were further confirmed with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), and the QB-ICA results also exhibited good agreement with LC-MS/MS method. In brief, this work demonstrates that QB-ICA is capable of rapid, sensitive screening of toxins in food analysis, and shows great promise for point-of-care testing of other analytes.