Development and understanding the efficacy of advanced technologies for mycotoxin detection and degradation in feed materials

真菌毒素具有致癌性和神经毒性，它们在饲料中的存在对牲畜和人类健康构成重大危害。真菌毒素的快速检测和随后的有效降解可显著降低食品和饲料安全风险。科技创新的进步为开发快速检测和有效降解饲料中多种真菌毒素的方法提供了知识。基于微流控纸的分析设备能够通过在一张图案纸上操纵样品流动来实现高通量和高成本效益的测定。大气冷等离子体（ACP）是一种可持续、绿色、非热的消毒技术。它有可能减少食品和饲料产品中的霉菌毒素。作为一项新兴的新技术，关于饲料中发现的真菌毒素（例如，油菜籽粒和粕中的脱氧雪腐镰刀菌烯醇、玉米赤霉烯酮和麦角生物碱）对ACP处理的反应知之甚少。本项目的目标是：1)开发新型纸基微流体装置，用于饲料中真菌毒素的快速检测；2)确定影响真菌毒素和真菌孢子降解的主要参数，开发ACP技术。从该项目获得的信息将帮助我们开发先进的霉菌毒素检测和降解技术，并在未来扩大其规模。该项目还可以帮助食品和饲料工业减少其产品中真菌毒素的流行。从长远来看，我们还打算在阿尔伯塔大学和不列颠哥伦比亚大学建立一个基于先进检测和消毒技术的研究项目，以实现这些技术的工业规模。

Mycotoxins can be carcinogenic and neurotoxic, and their presence in feed materials pose significant hazard to livestock and human health. Rapid detection and subsequent effective degradation of mycotoxins can reduce food and feed safety risks significantly. Advancement in science and technological innovations offers knowledge for the development of methods for rapid detection and effective degradation of multiple mycotoxins in feed materials. Microfluidic paper-based analytical devices have the capability to achieve the determination in a high-throughput and cost-effective manner by manipulating sample flow on a piece of patterned paper. Atmospheric cold plasma (ACP) is a sustainable, green, non-thermal disinfection technology. It has the potential to reduce mycotoxins in food and feed products. As an emerging new technology, little knowledge is available regarding the response of mycotoxins identified in feed materials (e.g., deoxynivalenol, zearalenone, and ergot alkaloids in canola grains and meal) to ACP treatment. The objectives of this project are to: 1) develop novel paper-based microfluidic devices for rapid detection of mycotoxins in feeds and 2) identify major parameters influencing mycotoxin and fungal spore degradation to develop ACP technology. The information obtained from this project will help us develop advanced mycotoxin detection and degradation technologies and their future scale-up. This project can also help food and feed industry to reduce the prevalence of mycotoxins in their products. In a long term, we also aim to establish a research program based on advanced detection and disinfection technologies at University of Alberta and University of British Columbia to achieve industrial scale-up of these technologies.