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Mycotoxins pollution is a global concern, and can pose a serious threat to human health. People and livestock eating contaminated food will encounter acute and chronic poisoning symptoms, such as carcinogenicity, acute hepatitis, and a weakened immune system. In order to prevent or reduce the exposure of human beings and livestock to mycotoxins, it is necessary to screen mycotoxins in different foods efficiently, sensitively, and selectively. Proper sample preparation is very important for the separation, purification, and enrichment of mycotoxins from complex matrices. This review provides a comprehensive summary of mycotoxins pretreatment methods since 2017, including traditionally used methods, solid-phase extraction (SPE)-based methods, liquid-liquid extraction (LLE)-based methods, matrix solid phase dispersion (MSPD), QuEChERS, and so on. The novel materials and cutting-edge technologies are systematically and comprehensively summarized. Moreover, we discuss and compare the pros and cons of different pretreatment methods and suggest a prospect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Layer-by-layer (LBL) technique is a well-established method for the formation of nanocapsules, which could encapsulate nanoparticles by polyelectrolyte and has received great interest in some areas of research. In this study, colloidal gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) were used as a vehicle for loading horseradish peroxidase (HRP), and AuNPs-HRP was encapsulated by using LBL technique to form a signal amplification nanocapsule probe. Based on the probe, an immunoassay was developed for the detection of imidacloprid in agricultural food samples (rice, pear and cabbage). The IC50 value of the assay was 0.11 ng mL−1 which was 8-9954 times lower than those of traditional ELISAs and well below the maximum residue limits (MRLs) permitted by the European Union (EU). The recoveries of imidacloprid from three different samples were 80.34–120.84% that had a good correlation (R2 = 0.9739) with those obtained by the commercial kit. The developed assay could provide a sensitive method for detection of imidacloprid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]