Emerging technologies for mycotoxin detection

The history of the development of analytical methods for detecting fungal toxins is rich and varied. Method development has followed a process somewhat akin to Darwinian evolution: methods are selected based upon the characteristics most desirable to the analyst. Typically, this has lead to the development of accurate and sensitive methods for their detection, with a recurring emphasis on improving the speed and lowering the costs of the assays. Like evolution, there have been radical developments, incremental developments, and techniques that have fallen from favor only to be rediscovered. This review focuses on recent developments in technologies for detection of mycotoxins, with a particular emphasis on the myriad forms of biosensors that have begun to appear. Specifically, recent development in evanescent wave technologies (surface plasmon resonance, fiber optic sensors), lateral flow and dipstick devices, fluorescence polarization and time-resolved fluorescence, microbead assays, and capillary electrophoretic immunoassays, are described. The challenge for the emerging technologies is to demonstrate advantages over the more conventional, and better established, techniques in settings outside the analytical laboratory.