The occurrence and biological control of zearalenone in cereals and cereal-based feedstuffs: a review

Abstract

Zearalenone, a prominent mycotoxin produced by Fusarium spp., ubiquitously contaminates cereal grains and animal feedstuffs. The thermal stability of zearalenone creates serious obstacles for traditional removal methods, which may introduce new safety issues, or reducing nutritional quality. In contrast, biological technologies provide appealing benefits such as easy to apply and effective, with low toxicity byproducts. Thus, this review aims to describe the occurrence of zearalenone in cereals and cereal-based feedstuffs in the recent 5 years, outline the rules and regulations regarding zearalenone in the major countries, and discuss the recent developments of biological methods for controlling zearalenone in cereals and cereal-based feedstuffs. In addition, this article also reviews the application and the development trend of biological strategies for removal zearalenone in cereals and cereal-based feedstuffs.

Keywords:

• Zearalenone
• cereals
• occurrence
• biological control

Authors’ contributions

Conceptualization, writing-original draft preparation, writing-review and editing, Z.-H.M.; Writing-original draft preparation, writing-review and editing, H.-Y.M.; investigation, formal analysis, L.-M.M., J.-W; super-vision, X.K. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Data availability statement

Not applicable.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Beijing Natural Science Foundation of China under Project No. 6242002 and the Beijing Technology and Business University Young Teachers’ Research Start-up Fund Projects QNJJ2022-07, China.