Recent advances in the rapid acoustic screening of deoxynivalenol in wheat grains

Abstract

Deoxynivalenol (DON) is a natural and ubiquitous toxic metabolite produced by filamentous fungi of the genus Fusarium. Approximately one quarter of the world's food crops (mainly cereals) are affected by mycotoxins such as DON. A rapid and non-destructive method to evaluate the quality and safety of grains is therefore required to eliminate these toxins from the food chain. The first portable acoustic device that predicts the concentration of DON in cereal grains has been developed using a broadband capacitive ultrasonic transducer. An acoustic method was optimised for the rapid prediction of DON in wheat. To measure the performance of this method, a model system comprising 0-100% scabby wheat grains was prepared and a single laboratory validation was carried out. The best regression model between DON concentrations determined by the reference ELISA method and the acoustic technique was obtained at an acoustic frequency of 32.2 kHz, with a correlation coefficient of 0.9852 and a repeatability coefficient of variation of 2.1-9.3%, which is much better than the results achieved by prototype acoustic spectrometers. These data show that acoustic technology allows the online monitoring of DON in cereal grains, such as wheat, because it is possible to analyse multilayer grain beds. Sound absorption depends on the grain size and moisture content, so it is advisable to use the equipment at the point of harvest, where one strain of cereals usually dominates and the grains have a more homogeneous morphology and uniform moisture content.

Acoustic-Based Screening Method for the Detection of Total Aflatoxin in Corn and Biological Detoxification in Bioethanol Production

“…Results indicated that as microbiological contamination of nuts increased, the amplitude of the acoustic signal penetrating the nut sample decreased. The obtained results are in agreement with previous studies in which a strong dependence between DON and the content of scabby kernels in wheat matrix was found by Juodeikiene et al (2008Juodeikiene et al ( , 2014b and Tutelyan (2004). The results of the fungal invasion are that the attacked grains shrivel (become scabby in the case of wheat) and become more porous.…”

“…Samples of the corn grain, corn grain model system, and different nuts model systems were screened using a recently developed portable acoustic spectrometer (Figure 1) with penetration (Juodeikiene et al, 2014b).…”

Risks to human and animal health related to the presence of deoxynivalenol and its acetylated and modified forms in food and feed

“…In addition to the chemical and immunochemical methods for DON, 3‐Ac‐DON, 15‐Ac‐DON and DON‐3‐glucoside, there exist non‐invasive screening methods based on the spectroscopic characteristics of the analytes or on the acoustic characteristics of DON‐contaminated grain kernels. (Kos et al., ; Juodeikiene et al., , ; Liu et al., ; Fox and Manley, ). Another alternative screening method that can detect DON contamination of cereal grains with high sample throughput is the electronic nose (Campagnoli et al., ; Lippolis et al., ).…”

Foreword: rapid methods for mycotoxin detection

“…In their paper 'Recent advances in the rapid acoustic screening of deoxynivalenol in wheat grains' , Juodeikiene et al (2014) report on the first portable acoustic device predicting the concentration of DON in cereal grains, which has been developed using a broadband capacitive ultrasonic transducer. This paper describes an acoustic method optimised for the rapid prediction of DON in wheat.…”