Affiliation: | 1. International Centre of Biodynamics, 1 B Intrarea Portocalelor, sector 6, 060101, Bucharest, Romania;2. BAE: Biocapteurs-Analyses-Environnement, Universite de Perpignan Via Domitia, 52 Avenue Paul Alduy, Perpignan Cedex 66860, France |
Abstract: | Aflatoxins (AFs) are secondary metabolites produced by Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus. The molds may contribute to pre-harvest aflatoxin contamination of susceptible crops. For the customer and food producer, a predictive model for aflatoxin detection is very desirable. Versicolorin A (VerA), which is the first precursor in the pathway of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) biosynthesis, shares similar toxic group with the furofuran structure in aflatoxin B1. VerA exhibits a much lower teratogenic toxicity than AFB1 and may be used as a predictive indicator for aflatoxin B1 contamination of storage crops. Therefore, the development of a fast detection method for VerA is important. One of the randomly computer-generated aptamers of VerA was confirmed by isothermal titration calorimetry with Kd = 9.26 × 10?6 mol l?1. In addition, a simple and sensitive label-free aptasensor was developed for the electrochemical detection of VerA. According to the results from differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), a linear relationship existed between the log conc. of VerA (ranged from 0.01 to 100 ng ml?1) and the current (△Ip) with a limit of detection (LOD) of 10 pg ml?1. The resulting aptasensor exhibited good reproducibility for detecting VerA and stability after storage for 15 days at 4 °C with acceptable anti-interference against ZEN, OTA, DON, and FB1. When used in corn samples, the recoveries of VerA were determined to be in the range of 81.3%–104.4 %. Although with some intercross, result suggests that the obtained aptamer for VerA is potentially used as a sorbent for the preparation of solid-phase-extraction procedure to clean up food samples in conjunction with high-performance liquid chromatography analysis. |