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Review
. 2020 Oct 31;21(21):8187.
doi: 10.3390/ijms21218187.

Molecular Aspects of Mycotoxins-A Serious Problem for Human Health

Edyta Janik  1 , Marcin Niemcewicz  1 , Michal Ceremuga  2 , Maksymilian Stela  3 , Joanna Saluk-Bijak  4 , Adrian Siadkowski  5 , Michal Bijak  1
Affiliations
Review

Molecular Aspects of Mycotoxins-A Serious Problem for Human Health

Edyta Janik et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Mycotoxins are toxic fungal secondary metabolities formed by a variety of fungi (moulds) species. Hundreds of potentially toxic mycotoxins have been already identified and are considered a serious problem in agriculture, animal husbandry, and public health. A large number of food-related products and beverages are yearly contaminated by mycotoxins, resulting in economic welfare losses. Mycotoxin indoor environment contamination is a global problem especially in less technologically developed countries. There is an ongoing effort in prevention of mould growth in the field and decontamination of contaminated food and feed in order to protect human and animal health. It should be emphasized that the mycotoxins production by fungi (moulds) species is unavoidable and that they are more toxic than pesticides. Human and animals are exposed to mycotoxin via food, inhalation, or contact which can result in many building-related illnesses including kidney and neurological diseases and cancer. In this review, we described in detail the molecular aspects of main representatives of mycotoxins, which are serious problems for global health, such as aflatoxins, ochratoxin A, T-2 toxin, deoxynivalenol, patulin, and zearalenone.

Keywords: contamination; human health; molecular aspects; mycotoxins.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Chemical structure of aflatoxin B1 (structure generated from InChI code available on https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) (accessed on 16 August 2020).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Chemical structure of ochratoxin A (structure generated from InChI code available on https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) (accessed on 16 August 2020).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Chemical structure of toxin T-2 (structure generated from InChI code available on https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) (accessed on 16 August 2020).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Chemical structure of deoxynivalenol (structure generated from InChI code available on https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) (accessed on 16 August 2020).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Chemical structure of patulin (structure generated from InChI code available on https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) (accessed on 16 August 2020).
Figure 6
Figure 6
Chemical structure of zearalenone (structure generated from InChI code available on https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) (accessed on 16 August 2020).
Figure 7
Figure 7
Mycotoxin mechanism of action and their impact on human organism.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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