April 1998   Volume IV, No. 1

JOURNAL OF FOOD MYCOLOGY, starting in March, 1998, will publish high standard basic and applied papers on all aspects of the field of food mycology, including foodborne fungi, biochemical properties of fungi, taxonomy, physiology and potential mycotoxin formation. It will provide a forum for research papers, notes, reviews, short communications and letters on the control of fungal food spoilage and potential or actual mycotoxin production as well as fungi usage for production of fermented foods. Editor: John I. Pitt, CSIRO Division of Food Science, P.O. Box 52, North Ryde, NSW 2113, Australia. E-Mail: John.Pitt@dsft.csiro.au.

The Nordic Council of Ministers has published a volume entitled FUSARIUM TOXINS IN CEREALS - A RISK ASSESSMENT. The main objective of the work was to make a risk assessment of some selected Fusarium toxins. A review of the available toxicological data of the selected toxins has been made and temporary tolerable daily intakes (tTDI) have been established. The risk assessments presented include estimations of the dietary intakes in the Nordic countries. Short reviews on fusarenon-X, fusarin C, diacetoxyscirpenol and moniliformin were also made. The report also contains a brief introduction to the classification of Fusarium and toxin production by the fungi as well as a review of chemical analytical methods for determination of the different toxins. Contact: Nordic Council of Ministers, Store Strand-straede 18, DK-1255 Copenhagen K, Denmark. Fax: +45-3-396-0202. Ref. TemaNord 1998:502.

The report of a SCOOP (Scientific Co-operation) task set up by the European Commission to provide the SCF (Scientific Committee on Food) with information on European dietary exposure to aflatoxins has been published. The report contains a collation of data provided by several institutes on the occurrence of aflatoxins B1, B2, G1, G2 and M1 in a number of commodities (nuts and nut products, figs and fig products, cereals and cereal products, spices, fruits and vegetables, confectionery products and snacks, baby foods, milk and milk products, other products) in 13 countries (12 EU Member States and Norway). Consumption data and aflatoxin intake estimates by commodities have also been presented. Indicators of aflatoxin intake have been reported for seven countries, although they cannot be taken as an estimate of the total intake of aflatoxins for a particular country, nor used to derive an estimate of total aflatoxin intake for Europe. For more information about this report (Report EUR 17526) contact: CORDIS Customer Service, BP 2373, L-1023 Luxembourg.

A possible strategy for the production of CERTIFIED REFERENCE MATERIALS (CRMs) in the area of mycotoxins through the food and feed chains is suggested by A. Boenke (European Commission, SMT Programme, 200 Rue de la Loi, B-1049 Brussels, Belgium. Fax: +32-2-295-8072) in a paper published in Food Chemistry, 1997, 60, 255-262. The paper reports an accurate discussion of the following factors influencing the production of new pure reference compounds and matrix CRMs: 1) Food and feed chain, 2) Calibration tree, 3) Fungal infection, invasion and chemical and physical behavior of mycotoxins, 4) Toxicological behavior of mycotoxins; 5) Economical and legal aspects and consumer habits.

A special report on APPLICATION OF IMMUNO-AFFINITY COLUMNS TO MYCOTOXIN ANALYSIS, authors: P.M. Scott and M.W. Trucksess, has been published in Journal of AOAC International, 1997, 80, 941-949, describing several applications of immunoaffinty columns to the analysis of aflatoxins B1, B2, G1, G2, and M1, other aflatoxins and adducts, Ochratoxin A, Fumonisins, Zearalenone and Deoxynivalenol. Details on columns, effect of extraction solvent, comparison of IAC methods with other methods, inter-laboratory collaborative studies and automation are reported for aflatoxins.

An interesting Ph.D. thesis, entitled PUBLIC HEALTH ASPECTS OF FUSARIUM MYCOTOXINS IN FOOD IN THE NETHERLANDS was completed in January, 1998 by Monique de Nijs (Supervisors: F.M. Rombouts and S.H.W. Notermans), TNO Nutrition and Food Research Institute, Industrial Microbiology, Utrechtseweg 48, P.O. Box 360, 3700. AJ Zeist, The Netherlands. Fax: +31-30-695-7224. The thesis contained the summary or full presentation of the following papers published or submitted for publication to various journals: 1) Identification of hazardous Fusarium secondary metabolites occurring in food raw material (J. Food Saf., 1997, 17, 161-192), 2) Fungal infection and presence of Deoxynivalenol and Zearalenone in cereals grown in The Netherlands (J. Food Prot., 1996, 59, 772-777), 3) Variations in RAPD patterns and secondary metabolite profiles within Fusarium species from cereals from various parts of The Netherlands (Food Microbiol., 1997, 14, 449-459), 4) Fumonisin B1 in maize for food production imported in The Netherlands (Food Addit. Contam. in press), 5) The occurrence of Fumonisin B1 in maize-containing foods in The Netherlands (Food Addit. Contam. in press), 6) Human exposure assessment to Fumonisin B1 (J. Food Prot., submitted), 7) Effects of low doses of Fumonisin B1 on kidney, liver and immune parameters in rats in a 28-day toxicity study (Food Chem Toxicol., submitted).

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