Objective
The contamination of maize by fungi, especially by Fusarium species is a world-wide problem. One of the most prevalent Fusarium mycotoxins frequently found on European maize is zearalenone (ZON).
ZON has been implicated in a range of human and animal diseases. It shows remarkable oestrogenic properties and can cause severe reproductive and infertility problems in farm animals, particularly in pigs. Moreover, exposure to ZON may cause the development of cancers, genetic mutations and birth defects. Therefore, the contamination of maize with ZON is a threat to animal and public health and seriously reduces the quality of maize products. A summary of the surveys on the natural occurrence of ZON in the EU showed that ZON occurs in almost every agricultural product at concentrations ranging from 1 to 2000 ùg/kg. The very high export and import volume of maize within the EU in 1996 of about 1 billion ECU proves the economical relevance of contaminations with ZON. This underlines that accurate determination of ZON in maize is necessary either for health protection of consumers and for the industry to guarantee the quality assurance of the products and to avoid trade barriers. Though ZON is one of the five most frequently determined mycotoxins there is a lack of reliable and validated methods. In addition, there is no certified reference material (CRM) available for ZON analysis, which would enable the comparability of measurement results between European laboratories. Therefore, in their latest resolution, the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN/WG5) underlined the necessity for a CRM for ZON in maize. These findings have led to the proposed project, with the aim to improve the quality of analysis for ZON at a European level and to develop CRMs for ZON in maize.
The proposed project involves the following main activities:
1. Feasibility study for the preparation of the candidate reference maize materials which comprises the preparation and certification of a solution of ZON in an organic solvent, characterisation of the maize matrix, preliminary intercomparison studies and improvement of the analytical methods. 2. Production of two reference materials: A) blank maize material (<5kg/kg ZON) and B) maize naturally contaminated with ZON (c=50-100kg/kg); including homogeneity and stability tests.
3. Certification campaign.
The preliminary intercomparison studies will be carried out by a consortium of 26 European laboratories from 11 different European countries. 18 laboratories will be selected for the final certification campaign. Three of the laboratories (main partners) additionally will take responsibilities for substantial parts of other activities. The great interest for CRMs for the analysis of ZON in maize is also underlined by the fact that 4 partners of the European industry are involved.
At the end of this project two CRMs and one reference standard will be available and will enable a more accurate and reliable detection of ZON in maize and maize products and will reduce the risk for animal and public health.
mycotoxin; Fusarium; zearalenone; maize; analysis; intercomparison; certified reference material
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespublic health
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologymycology
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsmutation
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineoncology
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Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
3430 TULLN
Austria