From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mycotoxicology is the branch of mycology that focus on analyzing and studying the toxins produced by fungus. As many microorganisms, fungus produce toxins as a response of biological stress in the environment, like lower nutrients or competitions for those available, conditions that trigger the secondary metabolism. Under this secondary path the fungus produces a wide array of compounds, usually enzymes, produced them in order to gain some level of advantage, like incrementing the efficiency of metabolic process to gain more energy from less food, or attacking another microorganism and being able to use their remains as a food source. Mycotoxicology is important in industrial processes that involves the production of food (for human or animal consumption) via the use of fungus and yeast, or with machinery in contact of these microorganisms because many of these enzimes manage to survive sterilization and can be harmful for human and animals.
