Response evaluation of an E-nose towards contaminated wheat by Fusarium poae fungi

Cereals contaminated by toxigenic fungi can be analysed by detecting and quantifying the related mycotoxins by using complex extraction procedures and analytical techniques. In this work, we studied the complex headspace of wheat samples contaminated by Fusarium poae fungi by SPME-GC-MS, searching the presence of non-grain volatile metabolites due to fungi contamination and their temporal evolution after inoculation. The chemical information on the headspace composition of fungi-contaminated wheat samples were used for the analysis by an electronic nose, evaluating its discrimination ability among differently contaminated samples. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.