The type A trichothecenes T-1 toxin (T-2) and HT-2 toxin (HT-2) are hazardous Fusarium products that contaminate many field crops growing in cold to temperate regions across the world. Toxicity studies in laboratory and farm animals have been used to derive a temporary tolerable daily intake (t-TDI) for the sum of T-2 and HT-2 of no more than 60 ng/kg body weight. To protect the consumers, it is now necessary to screen a large number of food samples for the presence of these poisonous fungal metabolites. Towards that goal, we discovered that the transcriptional apparatus of a human carcinoma cell line (MCF7) provides a sensitive biological sensor of type A trichothecenes. In fact, exposure of this easy-to-culture cell line to T-2 and HT-2 results in the regulation of >2,000 different transcripts with expressin changes ranging from >5,000-fold gene inductions to >40-fold gene repressions. These transcriptional responses have been exploited to develop practival microship and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays for the detection of type A trichothecenes at parts per billion levels.

LANCOVA Katarina;  BOWENS Priscilla;  STROKA Joerg;  GMUENDER Hans;  ELLINGER T.;  NAEGELI Hans-Peter; 

2009-06-09

Wageningen Academic Publishers

JRC52535

1875-0710,   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC52535,   

10.3920/WMJ2008.1125,