Inactivation of Fungi and Fungal Toxins by Cold Plasma

Abstract

Over the last decades, foods contaminated by spoilage fungi and their mycotoxins have become a serious global burden, which not only cause huge loss of food production and quality but also severely threaten human health. Currently, a novel nonthermal technology of cold plasma exhibits great potentials as a costeffective, efficient, chemical-free and environmental-friendly strategy to inactivate fungi and degrade mycotoxins on foods. Herein, this chapter mainly presents an overview of the decontamination of fungi and their mycotoxins by cold plasma and the possible mechanisms. The published literatures show that cold plasma can effectively inactive various fungi (yeasts and molds) and their biofilms. The reactive species in cold plasma can directly damage the external structure of cell, but also induce oxidative stress in cells, consequently damaging the intercellular components and destroying cell normal physiochemical functions. Besides reducing the mycotoxin production via inactivating fungi, cold plasma can also degrade mycotoxins to less or nontoxic molecules through complex chemical reactions. Furthermore, the last sector summarizes the studies of plasma-activated water (PAW) on fungi inactivation and mycotoxin degradation. Above all, although the effectiveness of cold plasma/PAW for fungi and mycotoxins inactivation has been evidenced, the exact mechanism (especially the degradation pathway of mycotoxin) is still not clear. Meanwhile, studies about the edible safety of plasma/PAW-treated food and the large-scale industrial plasma device development are rare, which need much more attention.