Development of a zebrafish model for toxicity evaluation of adulterated Apis mellifera honey.

Since ancient times, honey has been used for medical purposes and the treatment of various disorders. As a high-quality food product, the honey industry is prone to fraud and adulteration. Moreover, limited experimental studies have investigated the impact of adulterated honey consumption using zebrafish as the animal model. The aims of this study were: (1) to calculate the lethal concentration (LC50) of acid-adulterated Apis mellifera honey on embryos, (2) to investigate the effect of pure and acid-adulterated A. mellifera honey on hatching rate (%) and heart rate of zebrafish (embryos and larvae), (3) to elucidate toxicology of selected adulterated honey based on lethal dose (LD50) using adult zebrafish and (4) to screen the metabolites profile of adulterated honey from blood serum of adult zebrafish. The result indicated the LC50 of 31.10 ± 1.63 (mg/ml) for pure A. mellifera honey, while acetic acid demonstrates the lowest LC50 (4.98 ± 0.06 mg/ml) among acid adulterants with the highest mortality rate at 96 hpf. The treatment of zebrafish embryos with adulterated A. mellifera honey significantly (p ≤ 0.05) increased the hatching rate (%) and decreased the heartbeat rate. Acute, prolong-acute, and sub-acute toxicology tests on adult zebrafish were conducted at a concentration of 7% w/w of acid adulterants. Furthermore, the blood serum metabolite profile of adulterated-honey-treated zebrafish was screened by LC-MS/MS analysis and three endogenous metabolites have been revealed: (1) Xanthotoxol or 8-Hydroxypsoralen, (2) 16-Oxoandrostenediol, and (3) 3,5-Dicaffeoyl-4-succinoylquinic acid. These results prove that employed honey adulterants cause mortality that contributes to higher toxicity. Moreover, this study introduces the zebrafish toxicity test as a new promising standard technique for the potential toxicity assessment of acid-adulterated honey in this study and hazardous food adulterants for future studies.

Application, challenges and future prospects of recent nondestructive techniques based on the electromagnetic spectrum in food quality and safety.

Safety and quality aspects of food products have always been critical issues for the food production and processing industries. Since conventional quality measurements are laborious, time-consuming, and expensive, it is vital to develop new, fast, non-invasive, cost-effective, and direct techniques to eliminate those challenges. Recently, non-destructive techniques have been applied in the food sector to improve the quality and safety of foodstuffs. The aim of this review is an effort to list non-destructive techniques (X-ray, computer tomography, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, hyperspectral imaging, infrared, Raman, terahertz, nuclear magnetic resonance, magnetic resonance imaging, and ultrasound imaging) based on the electromagnetic spectrum and discuss their principle and application in the food sector. This review provides an in-depth assessment of the different non-destructive techniques used for the quality and safety analysis of foodstuffs. We also discussed comprehensively about advantages, disadvantages, challenges, and opportunities for the application of each technique and recommended some solutions and developments for future trends.