PARC Projects

Provide protection against most harmful chemicals
Hazard characterisation of emerging mycotoxins
Health effects
Human health
NGRA
Time span
-
Potential impacts
  • Recommending which fungal toxins should be closely monitored in food and feed to safeguard human health.
  • Establishing health-based guidance values for the tested mycotoxins.
  • Supporting the setting of maximum allowable levels for the studied mycotoxins in food and feed under regulatory frameworks.
Partners involved
ANSES (FR)
BfR (DE)
IMR (NO)
BPI (GR)
INRS (FR)
INSA (PT)
ISS (IT)
NIB (SI)
NIPH (NO)
NVI (NO)
STAMI (NO)
TUB (DE)
UNAV (ES)
UNIVIE (AT)
WU-TOX (NL)
Contacts
Doris Marko (UNIVIE)
doris.marko [at] univie.ac.at
Anne-Cathrin Behr (BfR)
Anne-Cathrin.Behr [at] bfr.bund.de
Key messages
  • Identifying toxicological effects of selected enniatins and Alternaria toxins.
  • Providing urgently needed in vitro data for an appropriate risk assessment.
  • Aim to set health-based guidance values for food (and feed).
Overview

Mycotoxins ↗ are secondary metabolites produced by fungi that can contaminate food (e.g. cereal products, fruits, and beverages) and animal feed. These toxins can have harmful effects, ranging from neurotoxicity (damage to the nervous system) to carcinogenesis (the development of cancer).

Due to the widespread human exposure to these toxins – an issue likely to worsen in Europe with climate change and the lack of mandatory reporting on their hazards – the Partnership on the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals (PARC) has identified the need for reliable toxicity data as a priority. This effort is supported by regulatory authorities, including the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA ↗)’s CONTAM Panel ↗, which assesses contaminants in the food chain.

This project focuses on two emerging groups of fungal toxins, enniatins and Alternaria toxins, which require urgent regulatory attention due to limited data on their potential health risks.

The main goal is to address gaps in knowledge about their harmful effects on human health by studying the following areas:

  • Genotoxicity and mutagenicity: The potential of these toxins to damage genetic material which may lead to mutations.
  • Endocrine effects: How these toxins may interfere with hormonal systems.
  • Immunotoxicity: The effects of these toxins on the immune system’s ability to function properly.
  • Metabolism: How the body processes these toxins, including pathways that may activate or deactivate their harmful properties and how they move through the body (toxicokinetics).

This research aims to provide critical data to support regulatory decisions and protect public health.

Achievements & Results
  • Generating data in order to close data gaps on relevant toxicological endpoints by using OECD test guidelines, when possible, or by using New Approach Methodologies (NAMs ↗);
  • Published review articles to identify data gaps on Alternria toxins and enniatins.
Policy relevance
  • Closing data gaps of concern for human health to improve risk assessment;
  • Facilitate the uptake of our results in EFSA assesssments on enniatins and Alternaria toxins.

Related Projects

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Advancing endocrine disruptor assessment
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Filter by
Address chemical pollution in the natural environment
Provide protection against most harmful chemicals
Shift away from animal testing
Biodiversity protection
Developing a system to monitor chemicals in the environment
Enhancing data integration and risk assessment for chemical exposure
Environmental and multisource monitoring: Pilot study on PFAS and endocrine disruptors
Improving the environmental risk assessment for plant protection products
Innovative tools for an early warning system
Monitoring chemicals in wastewater using innovative techniques
Tracking emerging chemicals in animal species: A new monitoring approach
Understanding volatile siloxanes in Europe to support regulation
Advancing the characterisation of human chemical exposome with innovative methods
Advancing tools, knowledge and regulatory options for an improved risk assessment and management of chemical mixtures
Beyond food: Organic contaminants in daily environments
Enhancing the reusability of human biomonitoring data for improved health risk assessment
Establishment of advanced data processing methodologies and bioinformatic tools for a non-targeted screening repository
Harmonising quality of chemical and bio-effect directed suspect and non-target screening methods across fields
Health-based guideline values for indoor air
Leveraging HBM4EU data for chemical safety and zero pollution in Europe
Streamlining data processing methods for suspect and non-target screening
Testing assessment tools for hazardous substances in consumer products and articles
Toxicity of plastic-associated chemicals
Advancing detection mechanisms of hazardous chemicals in food
Assessing chemicals exposure of waste management workers
Boosting data availability for environmental burden of disease calculations of chemicals
Developing and testing new approaches for chemical exposure assessment of infants
Developing a sustainable European human biomonitoring framework
Developing indicators for chemical risk and health impact assessment
Enhancing healthy and safe working conditions in hospitals
Establishing health-based human biomonitoring guidance values
Hazard characterisation of emerging mycotoxins
Human biomonitoring studies on the general population
Implementing human biomonitoring as sentinel surveillance system
Improving chemical screening in human samples
Investigating mono-n-hexyl phthalate (MnHexP) exposure
More accurate health impact assessment methodologies for chemicals
Occupational biomonitoring of emerging chemicals: A new approach
PFAS in breast milk and infant health
Roadmap linking chemical substances and health
Tracking human exposure to environmental pollutants over time in Europe
Tracking PFAS exposure in children across Europe
Using case studies to assess health impact of exposure to chemical substances
Using general population human biomonitoring data to trace occupational exposure
Assessing the relevance of adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) and associated new approach methodologies (NAMs) for human health risk assessment
Demonstrating the applicability of New Approach Methodologies for regulatory use
Harmonisation of the risk assessment of chemicals
Improving regulatory readiness of new testing methods
Innovative testing strategies for the developing immune system
In vitro methods to assess respiratory uptake and toxicity
New tools for enforcing chemical safety in everyday items
New tools to assess fish thyroid disruption
Omics for chemical grouping and read-across
Sex-based differences in susceptibility to liver toxicants
Skin sensitisation and mixtures effects
Tools, criteria and methods for risk assessment
Towards a harmonised approach in chemical risk assessment
Understanding how chemicals can disrupt hormones and reproductive health
Advanced tools to identify metabolism-disrupting chemicals
Advancing endocrine disruptor assessment
Assessing unknown mixtures using monitoring data and new approach methods
Better tools to spot hidden cancer risks
Computational new approach methods based on machine learning and artificial intelligence
Developing toxicity roadmaps
Enhancing chemical mixture risk assessment and regulation
Enhancing the risk assessment of chemical mixtures
Harmonised workflow for human relevance assessment of Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) and New Approach Methodologies (NAMs)
Improving testing methods for thyroid hormone disrupting chemicals
Innovative approaches to assess developmental and adult neurotoxicity 
Innovative testing of chemical effects on the immune system
READYAI: Setting clear rules to assess when Artificial Intelligence can be trusted and used for evaluating chemical safety
Rethinking genotoxicity testing: A non-animal approach
Trusting new ways to test chemicals – the importance of retrospective validation
Advancing chemical risk assessment for diverse populations
Alternative predictive toxicology integrative approaches for chemical safety
Closing data gaps in physiologically-based kinetic modeling and quantitative in vitro to in vivo extrapolation
From emission to impact: modelling chemical pathways to human exposure
Integrating occupational and general exposure assessment
New approaches to assess organ toxicity without animal testing
New directions in systems toxicology for chemical safety
Advancing safe pesticide use through landscape risk assessment
Assessing the effects of naturally occurring toxins on aquatic ecosystems
Benchmarking the environmental risk assessment of plant protection products
Improving chemical risk assessment with new approach methods
Improving environmental risk assessments for plant protection products
Testing less complex pesticide risk assessment models for environmental regulation
Understanding risks from BPA alternatives on the environment
Environment
Health effects
Human health
Monitoring methods
Risk assessment
NGRA
Mixtures
Human biomonitoring
Workers
Streamlining data processing methods for suspect and non-target screening
Streamlining data processing methods for suspect and non-target screening

Hazard characterisation of emerging mycotoxins

Time span
-
Potential impacts
  • Recommending which fungal toxins should be closely monitored in food and feed to safeguard human health.
  • Establishing health-based guidance values for the tested mycotoxins.
  • Supporting the setting of maximum allowable levels for the studied mycotoxins in food and feed under regulatory frameworks.
ANSES (FR)
BfR (DE)
IMR (NO)
BPI (GR)
INRS (FR)
INSA (PT)
ISS (IT)
NIB (SI)
NIPH (NO)
NVI (NO)
STAMI (NO)
TUB (DE)
UNAV (ES)
UNIVIE (AT)
WU-TOX (NL)
Key messages
  • Identifying toxicological effects of selected enniatins and Alternaria toxins.
  • Providing urgently needed in vitro data for an appropriate risk assessment.
  • Aim to set health-based guidance values for food (and feed).
Overview

Mycotoxins ↗ are secondary metabolites produced by fungi that can contaminate food (e.g. cereal products, fruits, and beverages) and animal feed. These toxins can have harmful effects, ranging from neurotoxicity (damage to the nervous system) to carcinogenesis (the development of cancer).

Due to the widespread human exposure to these toxins – an issue likely to worsen in Europe with climate change and the lack of mandatory reporting on their hazards – the Partnership on the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals (PARC) has identified the need for reliable toxicity data as a priority. This effort is supported by regulatory authorities, including the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA ↗)’s CONTAM Panel ↗, which assesses contaminants in the food chain.

This project focuses on two emerging groups of fungal toxins, enniatins and Alternaria toxins, which require urgent regulatory attention due to limited data on their potential health risks.

The main goal is to address gaps in knowledge about their harmful effects on human health by studying the following areas:

  • Genotoxicity and mutagenicity: The potential of these toxins to damage genetic material which may lead to mutations.
  • Endocrine effects: How these toxins may interfere with hormonal systems.
  • Immunotoxicity: The effects of these toxins on the immune system’s ability to function properly.
  • Metabolism: How the body processes these toxins, including pathways that may activate or deactivate their harmful properties and how they move through the body (toxicokinetics).

This research aims to provide critical data to support regulatory decisions and protect public health.

Achievements & Results
  • Generating data in order to close data gaps on relevant toxicological endpoints by using OECD test guidelines, when possible, or by using New Approach Methodologies (NAMs ↗);
  • Published review articles to identify data gaps on Alternria toxins and enniatins.
Policy relevance
  • Closing data gaps of concern for human health to improve risk assessment;
  • Facilitate the uptake of our results in EFSA assesssments on enniatins and Alternaria toxins.
Contacts
Doris Marko (UNIVIE)
doris.marko [at] univie.ac.at
Anne-Cathrin Behr (BfR)
Anne-Cathrin.Behr [at] bfr.bund.de
Topics
Provide protection against most harmful chemicals
Keywords
Health effects
Human health
NGRA

Related Projects

Assessing chemicals exposure of waste management workers
Innovative testing of chemical effects on the immune system
Better tools to spot hidden cancer risks
Advanced tools to identify metabolism-disrupting chemicals
Advancing endocrine disruptor assessment
New approaches to assess organ toxicity without animal testing