Scientific evidence suggests that humans and wildlife species may experience adverse health consequences from exposure to environmental chemicals that interact with the endocrine system. Reliable short-term assays are needed to identify hormone-disrupting chemicals. In this study we demonstrate that the estrogenic activity of a chemical can be evaluated by assaying induction or repression of en...

Novel optical waveguide lightmode spectroscopy (OWLS)-based immunosensor formats were developed for label-free detection of Fusarium mycotoxin zearalenone (ZON). To achieve low limits (LODs), both immobilised antibody-based (direct) and antigen-based (competitive) assay setups applied. Immunoreagents on epoxy-, amino-, carboxyl-functionalised sensor surfaces, by optimising the immobilisation me...

The asymmetric unit of the title compound, C(18)H(26)O(5), which is known as α-zearalanol, contains two mol-ecules having the same conformation, with a r.m.s. deviation of less than 0.03 Å for all non-H atoms. In each independent mol-ecule, an intra-molecular O-H⋯O hydrogen bond stabilizes the mol-ecular conformation. In the crystal, O-H⋯O hydrogen bonds link the mol-ecules, forming infinite ch...

The 50% effective doses of fusarenon X, nivalenol, deoxynivalenol, and 15-acetyldeoxynivalenol required to reduce [3H]thymidine uptake in mitogen-stimulated human lymphocytes by 50% were 18, 72, 140, and 240 ng/ml, respectively. These results indicated that lymphotoxicity of 8-ketotrichothecenes decreased according to the C-4 substituent order acetyl greater than hydroxyl greater than hydrogen,...

A monoclonal antibody (mAb) against zearalenone (ZEN) was produced using ZEN-carboxymethoxylamine and -BSA conjugates. Antibody produced by one clone showing a very high binding ability was selected and found to have a higher affinity for ZEN compared to a commerciall ZEN antibody. We developed two direct competitive ELISA systems using the selected antibody (ZEN-coated and anti-ZEN antibody-co...