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TRAILBLAZERS Dr. Kaoutar El Mounadi’s Fight for Safer Food
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hat do cereals, grapes, coffee, spices, wine, and beer have in common? If they have been exposed to high humidity, it’s possible they are contaminated with a potentially lethal toxin known as ochratoxin A, the very toxin Dr. Kaoutar El Mounadi was researching as part of her PhD work at Southern Illinois University. El Mounadi is the first graduate of the College of Agricultural Sciences PhD program. Originally from Morocco, she graduated with a B. S. in Plant Biology from Mohammed V University in Rabat. She then went on to earn a M.S. in Microbiology at the University of Seville in Spain prior to entering a Master’s program in Plant and Soil Sciences here at Southern Illinois University. When approval for the PhD program came, El Mounadi switched over and began her PhD research. Her advisor in the program was Ahmad Fakhoury, an Associate Professor in the Department of Plant, Soil Science and Agricultural Systems. While her PhD is in Agricultural Sciences, El Mounadi’s focus was on plant pathology, in particular mycotoxins – toxic compounds produced by fungi. The focus of her research was ochratoxin A, a toxin produced by Aspergillus and Penicillium species which can contaminate a wide range of food and feed and is found on cereals, grapes, coffees, spices, and all products made from those foods including wine and beer. “It’s a huge problem, so there are limitations for how much of this toxin you can have in each food. And the problem is that
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Southern Illinois University Carbondale
El Mounadi is the first PhD graduate of the College of Agricultural Sciences
you can’t get rid of it. The toxin goes through the whole chain and then it accumulates in humans. Ochratoxin A is a teratogenic, so it can interfere with normal embryonic development and cause birth defects. It’s also immunosuppressive and carcinogenic. For all these reasons, the Eurpoean Union has imposed limitations on how much ochratoxin A can be present in cereals, coffee, grapes, and wine. Worldwide, if any of these food commodities have ochratoxin A content above the established limit, they cannot be exported, and they cannot be sold,” El Mounadi said. Ochratoxin A was first isolated from the fungus Aspergillus ochraceus in South Africa in 1965 and since then the worldwide scientific community has been attempting to find ways to curtail the toxin’s impact on food and feed, while helping to identify its role in human and animal illnesses. The toxin has been tied to regional illnesses, including Balkan Endemic Nephropathy, which causes renal failure in humans.
In her research, El Mounadi was engaged in trying to understand the toxin at the genetic level. “How this toxin is produced by the fungus and why it’s produced is still unclear. So we’re trying to see is how it’s produced from the genetic point of view – what genes are involved in the biosynthesis of this toxin,” she said “It’s very important to know how the fungus is producing the toxin – what are the genes that are involved in the biosynthesis of the toxin so you can control them and what conditions inhibit or simulate the production of the toxin. Once you control the production of the toxin from the fungus, then you can control whatever comes after. You can still have the fungus but it can’t produce the toxin. A part of our work was to isolate the species that are nonproducers of the toxin so that they can be used later for bio-control,” El Mounadi said. Until researchers find a way to stop the growth of ochratoxin A, there are regular inspections for food and feed, both before they get exported and before they get sold in the market, El Mounadi said. “It’s very well regulated.” In September, El Mounadi began working as a postdoctoral research associate at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis where she will be involved in researching the mode of activity of the antifungal proteins, plant defensins, and developing strategies for the development of fungal disease resistant mycotoxins-free transgenic crops.