Viticulture has been an important economic sector for centuries. In recent decades, global wine production has fluctuated between 250 and almost 300 million hectoliters, and in 2022, the value of wine exports reached EUR 37.6 billion. Climate change and the associated higher temperatures could favor the occurrence of ochratoxin A (OTA) in wine. OTA is a mycotoxin produced by some species of the genera Aspergillus and Penicillium and has nephrotoxic, immunotoxic, teratogenic, hepatotoxic, and carcinogenic effects on animals and humans. The presence of this toxin in wine is related to the type of wine—red wines are more frequently contaminated with OTA—and the geographical location of the vineyard. In Europe, the lower the latitude, the greater the risk of OTA contamination in wine. However, climate change could increase the risk of OTA contamination in wine in other regions. Due to their toxic effects, the development of effective and environmentally friendly methods to prevent, decontaminate, and degrade OTA is essential. This review summarises the available research on biological aspects of OTA prevention, removal, and degradation.

Food and feed safety are of paramount relevance in everyday life. The awareness that different chemicals, e.g., those largely used in agriculture, could present both environmental problems and health hazards, has led to a large limitation of their use. Chemicals were also the main tool in a control of fungal pathogens and their secondary metabolites, mycotoxins. There is a drive to develop more environmentally friendly, “green”, approaches to control mycotoxin contamination of foodstuffs. Different mushroom metabolites showed the potential to act as control agents against mycotoxin production. The use of a polysaccharide, Tramesan, extracted from the basidiomycete Trametes versicolor, for controlling biosynthesis of aflatoxin B1 and ochratoxin A, has been previously discussed. In this study, oligosaccharides obtained from Tramesan were evaluated. The purified exopolysaccharide of T. versicolor was partially hydrolyzed and separated by chromatography into fractions from disaccharides to heptasaccharides. Each fraction was individually tested for mycotoxin inhibition in A. flavus and A. carbonarius. Fragments smaller than seven units showed no significant effect on mycotoxin inhibition; heptasaccharides showed inhibitory activity of up to 90% in both fungi. These results indicated that these oligosaccharides could be used as natural alternatives to crop protection chemicals for controlling these two mycotoxins.

Two of the mycotoxins of greatest agroeconomic significance are aflatoxin B₁ (AFB₁), and ochratoxin A (OTA). It has been reported that extracts from some wood-decaying mushrooms, such as Lentinula edodes and Trametes versicolor showed the ability to inhibit AFB₁ or OTA biosynthesis. Therefore, in our study, a wide screening of 42 isolates of different ligninolytic mushrooms was assayed for their ability to inhibit the synthesis of OTA in Aspergillus carbonarius and AFB₁ in Aspergillus flavus, in order to find a metabolite that can simultaneously inhibit both mycotoxins. The results showed that four isolates produce metabolites able to inhibit the synthesis of OTA, and 11 isolates produced metabolites that inhibited AFB₁ by >50%. Two strains, the Trametes versicolor strain TV117 and the Schizophyllum commune strain S.C. Ailanto, produced metabolites able to significantly inhibit (>90%) the synthesis of both mycotoxins. Preliminary results suggest that the mechanism of efficacy of the S. commune rough and semipurified polysaccharides could be analogous to that found previously for Tramesan^®, by enhancing the antioxidant response in the target fungal cells. The overall results indicate that S. commune’s polysaccharide(s) could be a potential agent(s) in biological control and/or a useful component of the integrated strategies able to control mycotoxin synthesis.

Climate change is intensifying ecological instability in agricultural ecosystems, altering pest distribution and increasing the risk of fungal contamination and mycotoxin accumulation in crops. Among emerging threats, the invasive brown marmorated stink bug Halyomorpha halys has rapidly expanded across Europe, including Croatia. The species is polyphagous, and in the ripening of most plant crops, it accounts for a significant population and causes extensive plant damage. This study investigates the capacity of H. halys to disseminate mycotoxigenic fungi, with an emphasis on aflatoxin B₁ (AFB₁) and ochratoxin A (OTA) producers. One hundred adult H. halys individuals were collected from maize ears in Osijek, Croatia, in August 2023. Fungal propagules washed from their surfaces were inoculated on PDA and MEA media. A total of 212 pure fungal cultures were obtained, of which 202 belonged to the genera Aspergillus and Penicillium. Molecular identification using β-tubulin (BenA) gene sequencing revealed six Aspergillus and six Penicillium species, forming two well-supported phylogenetic clades. Aspergillus parasiticus was the most dominant species. Mycotoxin screening confirmed AFB₁ production in 20 isolates, all identified as A. parasiticus, while no OTA-producing strains were detected. The predominance of aflatoxigenic species on H. halys indicates that it may play a previously underrecognized role in the dispersal of mycotoxigenic fungi in agroecosystems.

Soil fungi are key drivers of terrestrial ecosystem functioning, contributing to organic matter decomposition, nutrient cycling, and plant–microorganism interactions. Despite their importance, the global distribution and structural biases of public sequence records for soil fungi remain incompletely characterized. In this study, we analyzed soil-associated fungal DNA sequences retrieved from the NCBI GenBank database using a custom R-based bioinformatics pipeline. Following filtering and metadata standardization, 544,554 filtered sequence records were obtained. The taxonomic composition of the dataset consisted primarily of Ascomycota (69.62%), followed by Basidiomycota, Glomeromycota, and Mucoromycota, with Trichoderma, Penicillium, and Aspergillus representing the most frequent genera. The geographic distribution revealed strong sampling bias, with China and the United States accounting for over one-third of all records. Ecological metadata indicated that rhizospheric and forest soils were the most common sources of the deposited sequences. At the same time, gene marker analyses confirmed the widespread use of the ITS region as the primary fungal barcode. Sequence diversity analyses revealed continental variation, with Europe and Asia showing higher medians, while the ordination highlighted clustering of sequence profiles, particularly among records from extreme environments. This study demonstrates the potential of public sequence databases for large-scale biodiversity assessments while highlighting the influence of sampling bias and the limitations of metadata.

Prikazana metodologija rada i preliminarni rezultati dio su istraživanja provedenih kroz interdisciplinarni istraživački modularni pilot projekt „Zaštita zadarske kulturne baštine od negativnog utjecaja mikroorganizama“ (KultBaMikroo) koji je financiran od strane Sveučilišta u Zadru (IP.01.2021.12.). Modularni projekt zamišljen je na način da se može provoditi kroz nekoliko modula, s tim da se kroz module mijenja vrsta građe kojom se projekt bavi. U ovom prvom istraživačkom modulu provode se istraživanja pisane građe u svrhu što bolje zaštite građe i ljudi koji borave u prostorima gdje se građa čuva. Planirano je da se u sljedećim modulima projekt baviti istraživanjima zaštite slikarske baštine, odnosno zaštitom nepokretne kulturne baštine. U ovom prvom modulu istraživanja su provođena u prostorima Državnog arhiva u Zadru, koji je partner na projektu, te u prostorima Kaptolske knjižnice Zadarske nadbiskupije u Zadru. Ovdje će biti prezentirani samo preliminarni rezultati istraživanja provedenih u Državnom arhivu u Zadru, jednom od najvažnijih arhiva u Hrvatskoj.