Background
Mycotoxins are natural, low molecular secondary metabolites from different fungi that can pose adverse health effects in humans. Workers may be exposed to mycotoxins from the genus Alternaria in occupations such as agriculture, waste management, and food and feed production. No OELs for Alternaria mycotoxins exist which at least partly is due to the lack of knowledge about their toxic properties. This project aims to close data gaps about Alternaria mycotoxins to generate necessary knowledge for future risk assessment and setting of OELs.
What we study in this project
STAMI will contribute to the characterization of immunotoxic effects of Alternaria toxins in cell-culture models. The role of Toll-Like receptors in the immune system is to recognize molecular structures or patterns associated with infectious agents, damage or adverse effects. We study how the mycotoxins can modify activation of Toll-Like receptors 2 and 4 (TLR2 and TLR4). Cell lines that have been genetically modified to overexpress either TLR2 or TLR4 are used in these studies.
In the second phase of the project, we study which immune response genes are induced or repressed after exposure of an advanced cell culture model of human bronchial epithelium (EpiAirway) to the mycotoxins. The goal of these studies is to evaluate if bronchial epithelium is a target organ for Alternaria toxins. A secondary goal is to evaluate if EpiAirway maybe considered a suitable model for characterizing inhalation toxicity of chemicals.
External collaborators:
The project is led by University of Vienna (AU) and BfR (DE). In total, the project has 18 partners in 11 European countries.
External funding:
Horizon Europe (EU)
Project manager (STAMI):
Steen Mollerup
Project partners (STAMI):
Solveig Krapf
Anne Straumfors
Rita Bæra
More information about the research program:
https://www.eu-parc.eu/
PARC P5.1.1.a: Natural toxins