 | Community Reference Laboratory for Mycotoxins |
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The Regulation (EC) No 776/2006 nominates the Joint Research Centre as the
Community reference laboratory (CRL) for mycotoxins. It is established at the
JRC Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM) and works
together with appointed national reference laboratories (NRLs) of the EU
Member States. The CRL for mycotoxins aims to facilitate the implementation of
European legislation related to monitoring of mycotoxins in food of plant
origin and animal feed.
 | What are mycotoxins? |
Download the
mycotoxin factsheet ( 850KB
).
Mycotoxins are toxic metabolites produced by fungi growing in food and animal
feed. As about 20 % of food products, mainly of plant origin, can be
contaminated with mycotoxins, European legislation sets maximum limits to
protect the consumers. To ensure that results from the laboratories monitoring
food and feed fulfil the requirements of legislation, any method that is used
for analysis of goods must meet established and accepted performance criteria.
Therefore, the CRL for mycotoxins co-ordinates activities related to the
development and improvement of methods of analysis for the official control of
the maximum levels.
| Tasks of the CRL for Mycotoxins |
The main tasks of the CRL for mycotoxins are:
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method development and validation
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organising comparative testing
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training
The activities of the CRL concern aflatoxin B1, total aflatoxins, ochratoxin
A, patulin, deoxynivalenol, zearalenone, fumonisins B1 & B2 and T-2 & HT-2
toxin, and ergot alkaloids.
The IRMM and the CRL for mycotoxins develop analytical approaches and validate
them in-house. In case a method is suitable and robust enough, the CRL
organises an international collaborative study to validate the method and to
assess the method performance. The collaborative studies are carried out
according to an internationally harmonised validation protocol.
Interlaboratory comparisons organised by the CRL for the NRLs enable them to
assess their performance and allow improving the overall correctness of
analytical results for mycotoxins.
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Last Update 09/06/2010
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