Bioassays - Bioassays in food safety - Natural toxins

8 important questions on Bioassays - Bioassays in food safety - Natural toxins

What are the natural toxins we have to screen for?

  • phytotoxins (eg phytoestrogens)
  • mycotoxins
  • marine biotoxins (fycotoxins) 

What are the bioassays for phytotoxins?

  • ER CALUX assay
  • YES (Yeast Estrogen) assay
  • ER-binding assay.

You can screen for activity and if it is present you can try to isolate the compound with chemical methods.

Why do they use bioassays for mycotoxins?

There are over 300 myotoxins. So hard to analyse all chemically.
So a bioassay is selective and sensitive, has a hight throughput and therefore can be used for screening.
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What is a example bioassay for mycotoxins?

There is a ELISA method present. So with antibodys.

What is the bioassay for marine biotoxins (fycotoxins)?

Mouse bioassay but now a days also new methods have been developed.

What are the new methods for bioassays on biotoxins (fycotoxins)?

  • Embryotic stem cell derived beating cardiomyocytes
  • Multi-electrode array platform with rat cortices
  • Neuro-2a cytoxicity (MTT) assay
  • Elisa Assay

How does the embryotic stem cell derived beating cardiomyocytes work?

You have cells that can contract (embryotic stem cells). Saxitoxin blocks the Na+ channel and will stop them from beating.

How does muti-electorde array platform with rat cortices work?

See how much saxitoxin is needed to block the Na+ chanels of certain cells.
Method is sensitive enough to detect marine biotoxins in extracts form shellfish samples.

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