Computational biology for enzymatic removal of mycotoxins

Abstract

Biological organisms carry a rich potential for removing toxins from our environment, but the search to identify suitable candidates remains challenging. We survey and explore the use of computational tools to discover and optimize the detoxification of harmful compounds. In particular, we will focus on mycotoxins—fungi-produced toxins that contaminate food and feed—and biological enzymes that are capable of rendering them less harmful. We discuss the use of computational tools to complement existing empirical data in three main directions: discovering the prospect of detoxification among underexplored organisms, finding important cellular processes that contribute to detoxification, and optimizing the performance of enzymes with detoxification capability.

Enzyme fatigue limits the detoxification of aflatoxin by Rhodococcus species

“…Since aflatoxin is extremely stable in the environment, decontamination through physical and chemical means has been challenging in terms of cost, efficiency, and reliability (10). Bioremediation-the employment of live organisms to degrade the toxin-has emerged as a promising alternative (11)(12)(13) when specific requirements are satisfied: detoxification byproducts are safe for consumption and for the environment, microbes employed are harmless, and undesired side-effects are experimentally ruled out. Some species have been found capable of degrading aflatoxin (12,14), including fungal species from the genera Trichoderma and Rhizopus (15) and bacterial species such as Pseudomonas putida (16), Myxococcus fulvus (17), Enterococcus faecium (18), and several Rhodococcus taxa (19,20).…”