Among all known mycotoxins, aflatoxins represent the most investigated, widespread and worrisome source of contamination of foods and feed worldwide. In the early 1960s, soon after the finding of aflatoxin B 1 (AFB 1 ) in the feedstuffs of aquacultured rainbow trout that had died in an epizootic of hepatomas, great scientific discoveries were made in several areas by a number of researchers under the direction of scientists like J. Halver, R. 0. Sinnhuber, G. S. Bailey, J. D. Hendricks and colleagues. Since that time, several studies have focused on the identification of new isoenzymes involved in AFB 1 metabolism and on the discovery of new modulators in AFB 1 -induced cancer initiation and progression. However, metabolic and toxicological studies on aflatoxins in marine aquacultured species are fragmented and restricted to a limited number of fish species. Aflatoxins exert a substantial impact on the fish farming production, causing disease with high mortality and a gradual decline of reared fish stock quality, thus representing a significant problem in aquaculture systems. Based on these considerations, the goals of this review article are: (1) to gather the currently available scientific information, summarising existing data on aflatoxin contamination on feeds and fishmeals, and toxicological effects induced in reared aquatic species; (2) to make a comparative analysis of AFB 1 metabolism in the most representative species studied; (3) to gain new insights on the risk of DNA damage caused by aflatoxins on fish genomes and their role in cancer development.

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Consumption of contaminated seafoods is a major cause of death and hospitalization particularly in poor and developing countries. As with other food types, seafoods are also not free of food-borne pathogens and several risk factors are associated with its consumption. Regarding seafoods, there are regulatory hygienic alerts in importing countries. This paper briefly reviews the occurrence of seafood-borne diseases and describes the most important bacterial causes of these infections. Also, major bacterial threats, the route of infection, and food safety concerns associated with seafoods consumption are explained. Several bacterial pathogens, like Vibrio spp., Salmonella spp., Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium botulinum, Shigella spp., and Aeromonas spp. are considered as microbiological hazards for seafoods. These bacteria can contaminate seafood products anytime from farm to table. Some effective methods should be adopted for control and prevention of bacterial hazards in fish industry. Maintaining the microbiological water quality of domestic capture, post-harvest care, proper hygiene, etc. can minimize the bacterial hazards. Food-borne intoxications can be controlled by the proper refrigeration of seafoods and the continuous monitoring of the chill chain during the entire production process right up to consumption. Other ways to prevent food-borne outbreaks due to consumptions of seafoods are training of the consumers about correct handling of food, proper preparation, and storage of seafoods.

The authors used a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay on buffalo mozzarella, a typical Italian dairy product, from the Apulia markets to evaluate the presence of cow milk and verification of the mozzarella label. The results obtained from 30 mozzarella samples demonstrated the presence of the cow genome in 22/30 samples, highlighting contamination as probable fraudulent adding of cow's milk or use of the same equipments in both working cycles.

Staphylococcal foodborne diseases resulting from consumption of food contaminated with staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) produced by certain strains of Staphylococcus aureus are the second most common foodborne illnesses in the world. Analytical methods are essential for routine monitoring purposes and safeguard public health. Different methods for SE detection have been proposed although their use in a complex matrix is often limited by the presence of substances that interfere with tests. In this article reverse passive latex agglutination (RPLA) and immunoblotting methods based on specific antibodies and currently available for SE detection have been compared. Culture filtrates from enterotoxin S. aureus strains isolated from cheese samples were identified by SET‐RPLA. Then the culture filtrates identified as staphylococcal enterotoxin A and staphylococcal enterotoxin B by RPLA test were analyzed with immunoblotting. The results obtained suggest that either SET‐RPLA or immunoblotting may be applied to culture filtrates for the detection of SEs with good correspondence of results. Although SET‐RPLA represents a simple method for routine monitoring purposes, a positive result by a rapid method (RPLA) is only regarded as presumptive and must be confirmed by standard methods (Feng 1996), such as immunoblotting method.