Potential for detection and discrimination between mycotoxigenic and non-toxigenic spoilage moulds using volatile production patterns

Overview & Synopsis

There has been interest in the development of techniques for the rapid early detection of mycotoxigenic moulds in the food production chain. The development of sensor arrays which respond to the presence of different volatiles produced by such moulds have been examined as a potential method for the development of such detection systems. Commercial devices based on such sensor arrays, so called electronic noses have been examined extensively for the potential application for determining the presence of mycotoxigenic moulds in food raw materials. There is also interest in using the qualitative volatile production patterns to discriminate between non-mycotoxigenic and mycotoxigenic strains of specific mycotoxgenic species, e.g. Fusarium section Liseola, Penicillium verrucosum and Aspergillus section Nigri. This paper reviews the technology and the available evidence that the non-destructive analysis of the headspace of samples of food raw materials or the discrimination between strains (mycotoxigenic and non-mycotoxigenic) can be determined using volatile fingerprints.