«Fifty shades of cyanobacterial green»
October 31, 2019Our PhD student Vittoria Mallia recently participated to the Horizon 2020 MSCA-ITN cluster event “Clean Water” organized by the Research Executive Agency (REA) of the European Commission in collaboration with the Fundacio Institut Català de Recerca de l’Aigua (ICRA). The event took place in Girona (Spain), on the 22nd of October 2019. Representatives from 12…
A Practical ELISA for Azaspiracids in Shellfish and Algae
February 21, 2019Azaspiracids (AZAs) are a group of natural algal toxins that appear periodically in shellfish. These toxins can cause food poisoning in humans and the first known poisoning episode happened in The Netherlands in 1995. The Irish shellfish consumed gave symptoms like stomach cramps, vomiting, severe diarrhea, and general nausea. Current methods for quantifying the regulated…
GILLMODEL – New project on the development of an in vitro model to study environmental factors influencing gill epithelial function receives funding from the Research Council of Norway
January 2, 2019Gill disease in farmed Atlantic salmon is a significant problem. Poor gill health, often caused by infectious agents or bad water quality (or a combination of these) severely compromises animal welfare and growth. With the increasing focus on recirculation aquaculture systems (RAS) and more intensive production, new challenges related to the epithelial function of the…
Bird mortality event associated with microcystins at Poplar Island, Maryland, USA
November 14, 2018More than 750 dead and dying birds were observed at the Paul S. Sarbanes Ecosystem Restoration Project at Poplar Island, Maryland, USA (Chesapeake Bay) in summer 2012. Avian botulism was suspected based on clinical signs. At the same time, a bloom of Microcystis was also ongoing in an impoundment on the island, and high levels…
1st CiguaPIRE project meeting in Europe
November 12, 2018CiguaPIRE researchers from the US, Canada, Norway, UK and Hong Kong recently met at a vineyard outside Nantes in France, in order to summarize the state-of-the-art in research on Ciguatera Fish Poisoning and planned the next months ahead. The Norwegian team is involved in ciguatoxin detection, identification, and biotransformation in relevant fish species. The Norwegian…
MycoSafe-South kick-off
October 10, 2018This new initiative from the University of Ghent intends to harness the expertise and infrastructure available in Europe by strengthening the capacity of the Southern partners to tackle the mycotoxin problem and the associated food safety issues. The aim of the 3-year project is to identify and test safe and efficient mitigation strategies to reduce…
Deoxynivalenol – nervous effects reconnaissance
August 1, 2018Data on neurotoxicological effects of the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON), also called vomitoxin, are limited. Orally exposed laboratory (mice, rats) and domestic animals (pig, chicken) show behavioural changes such as feed refusal, increased locomotor activity and aggressive behaviour, and DON plasma concentrations at ppm-level result in vomiting in pigs and humans. Preliminary observations suggest that DON…
Using boric acid gel for extraction of azaspiracids
June 26, 2018Azaspiracids (AZAs) are marine algal toxins that can cause food poisoning in humans. Azaspiracids belong to a family of more than 50 polyether toxins originating from marine dinoflagellates such as Azadinium spinosum. Figure 1: Structure of azaspiracid-1 Boric acid gel can bind selectively to compounds containing vic-diols or α-hydroxycarboxylic acids via formation of reversible boronate…
Is P-glycoprotein involved in toxicity of deoxynivalenol?
June 26, 20184-Deoxynivalenol (DON) is the most prevalent Fusarium mycotoxin, and it frequently occurs in grains such as wheat, barley, oats and rye all over the world. The ingestion of DON contaminated feed has been shown to result in pro-inflammatory effects as well as various pathological lesions, including the necrosis of the intestinal epithelium in several animal…