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As a fungicide with the characteristics of high effectiveness, internal absorption and broad spectrum, imazalil is widely used to prevent and treat in fruits and vegetables. Here, pregnant C57BL/6 mice were exposed to imazalil at dietary levels of 0, 0.025‰, and 0.25‰ through drinking water during pregnancy and lactation. We then analyzed the phenotype, metabolome, and expression of related genes and proteins in the livers of mice. There was a marked decrease in the body and liver weights of male offspring mice after maternal imazalil exposure, while this effect on the dam and female offspring was slight. Metabolomics analyses revealed that imazalil significantly altered the metabolite composition of liver samples from both dams and offspring. The preliminary results of the analysis indicated that glucolipid metabolism was the pathway most significantly affected by imazalil. We performed a coabundance association analysis of metabolites with significant changes in the pathway of glycolipid metabolism, and IMZ altered the networks of both dams and offspring compared with the network in control mice, especially in male offspring. The hepatic triglyceride, non-esterified fatty acid and glucose levels were increased significantly in the dams but decreased significantly in male offspring after maternal imazalil exposure. Furthermore, the expression levels of genes associated with glycolipid metabolism and m6A RNA methylation were significantly affected by maternal intake of imazalil. Imazalil-induced glucolipid metabolism disturbance was highly correlated with m6A RNA methylation. In conclusion, maternal imazalil exposure resulted in glucolipid metabolism disturbance and abnormal m6A RNA methylation in the livers of dams and offspring mice. We expected that the information acquired in this study will provide novel evidence for understanding the effect of maternal imazalil exposure on potential health risks.

Imazalil is a chiral fungicide widely used to protect strawberries against gray mold, which may pose threats to food safety. This study aims to investigate the stereoselective behavior of imazalil during strawberry growth and strawberry wine production. A method was proposed and validated for the extraction and quantitative analysis of imazalil residues in strawberry, strawberry pomace, and strawberry wine by using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The method exhibited mean recoveries ranging from 86.2% to 119.7% with relative standard deviations of 0.1–11.3%. The dissipation curve of imazalil during strawberry growth followed the first-order kinetic model with a half-life ranging from 6.5 to 7.1 days. Significant enantioselectivity of imazalil was observed in strawberry grown under field conditions and strawberry wine production process, with enantiomeric fraction values ranging from 0.51 (2 h) to 0.42 (27d) and from 0.48 (0d) to 0.52 (10d), respectively. (+)-imazalil was preferentially degraded in strawberry under field conditions, while (−)-imazalil was preferentially degraded during the fermentation process. The processing factor was lower than 1 for each procedure, indicating that the wine-making process can reduce imazalil residue in strawberry. These findings may facilitate a more accurate risk assessment of imazalil and provide important guidance for the safe and efficacious use of imazalil in agriculture.

Genotoxicity of the mixture of generic pesticides imidacloprid + imazalil + tebuconazole in a ratio of 14.0/1.7/1.0 by weight was assessed using Ames test (Salmonella typhimurium) and micronucleus test in vivo on mammalian bone marrow erythrocytes (CD-1 mice) supporting the data creation for the Real Life Risk Simulation (RLRS) approach. This pesticides’ combination is used in the commercial formulation for seed treatment in advance of or immediately before sowing. Tested pesticides’ technical grade active ingredients (TGAIs) showed no evidence of genotoxicity upon separate treatments. In combination, the three pesticides demonstrated negative results in the Ames test but induced a statistically significant, dose-depended increase in MN-PCEs in mice bone marrow at doses lower than those used separately. The observed effect may be mediated by the synergistic action of the tested TGAIs, their metabolites or impurities.

The adsorption-desorption and degradation characteristics of two widely applied fungicides, imazalil and penflufen, and the responses of soil bacterial diversity, structure, function, and interaction after long-term exposure were systemically studied in eight different soils. The adsorption ability of imazalil in soil was significantly higher than that of penflufen. Both imazalil and penflufen degraded slowly in most soils following the order: imazalil > penflufen, with soil pH, silt, and clay content being the potential major influencing factors. Both imazalil and penflufen obviously inhibited the soil microbial functional diversity, altered the soil bacterial community and decreased its diversity. Although exposure to low and high concentrations of imazalil and penflufen strengthened the interactions among the soil bacterial communities, the functional diversity of the co-occurrence network tended to be simple at high concentrations, especially in penflufen treatment. Both imazalil and penflufen markedly disturbed soil nitrogen cycling, especially penflufen seriously inhibited most nitrogen cycling processes, such as nitrogen fixation and nitrification. Meanwhile, sixteen and ten potential degradative bacteria of imazalil and penflufen, respectively, were found in soils, including Kaistobacter and Lysobacter. Collectively, the long-term application of imazalil and penflufen could cause residual accumulation in soils and subsequently result in serious negative effects on soil ecology., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Postharvest treatments with sanitizers and fungicides are applied to increase the quality, safety and shelf life of fresh produce including cantaloupes (also known as rockmelons). The primary role of sanitizers during cantaloupe washing is to prevent cross contamination of potentially pathogenic bacteria in washwater. Postharvest fungicide sprays or dips are employed to inhibit spoilage-causing fungi. While assessing the compatibility of these antimicrobials based on the measurement of active ingredients levels provides some indication of antimicrobial capacity, there is limited data on whether the interaction between these chemicals in wash water modifies their overall efficacy against relevant microorganisms. The aim of this research was to determine how chlorine- and peroxyacetic acid-based sanitizers interact with commercial guazatine- and imazalil-based fungicide formulations used on cantaloupes, and whether mixing these augments or suppresses anti-microbial activity against relevant human pathogens and spoilage fungi in wash water. The results were unpredictable: while most combinations were antimicrobial, the chlorine-based sanitizer when mixed with the guazatine-based fungicide had significantly reduced efficacy against pathogenic Salmonella spp. (~2.7 log) and the fungal spoilage organisms, Trichothecium roseum and Rhizopus stolonifera. Mixing the chlorine-based sanitizer with an imazalil-based fungicide produced a range of outcomes with antagonistic, indifferent and synergistic interactions observed for the fungal species tested. The peroxyacetic acid-based sanitizer led to indifferent interactions with the guazatine-based fungicide, while antagonism and synergy were observed when mixed with the imazalil-based fungicide. This study demonstrates that mixing postharvest agrichemicals used in the cantaloupe industry may increase the risk of microbial contamination and thereby potentially compromise food safety and quality., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

There is a growing body of evidence linking maternal exposure of environmental pollutants to intestinal and metabolic diseases that can be conserved across multiple generations. Here, female C57BL/6 mice were treated imazalil (IMZ) at dietary levels of 0, 0.025‰ and 0.25‰ during the gestation and lactation periods. The results demonstrated that IMZ treatment not only induced significant changes in the mucus secretion and ionic transport, but also disrupted the expression of antimicrobial peptides in the intestine of F 0 , F 1 and F 2 generations. In addition, IMZ exposure altered BAs metabolism and the affected the expression levels of critical genes involved in BAs synthesis, signaling, transportation and apical uptake. The immune cell-produced cytokines were displaying extraordinary changes after IMZ exposure. In particular, whether it was in F0, F1-20d, F1-7 w or F2-20d, the expression of IL-22 had the trend of markedly increasing upon IMZ exposure. Correlation analyses revealed that the expression of IL-22 was positively correlated with the change of BAs metabolites. Together, all these results indicated that IMZ exposure was perceived as a major stress by the intestinal epithelium that strongly affected the intestinal barrier function (including mucus, CFTR, AMPs, inflammation), largely in response to an alteration of BAs metabolism., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Citrus green mold, a postharvest disease caused by Penicillium digitatum, provokes important economic losses on lemon production. Here, the effectiveness of polyhexamethylene guanidine (PHMG) to inhibit P. digitatum growth and to control green mold on artificially infected lemons was evaluated. At sublethal concentrations, PHMG inhibited conidia germination and infectivity (5 mg L -1 ), and mycelial growth (50 mg L -1 ). Viability of conidia was completely suppressed by treatment with 500 mg L -1 PHMG. In this condition, membrane integrity loss, cell wall disruption and ultrastructural alterations were detected, as well as conidia distortion, deformation and collapse. In artificially inoculated lemons, a 30 s-immersion in 500 mg L -1 PHMG completely inhibited green mold. PHMG also exhibited a high disinfectant activity, even in the presence of 1% organic matter, with a better performance than the standard NaClO disinfectant. In addition, 500 mg L -1 PHMG protected wounds against infection. Taken together, our results indicate that PHMG is a promising fungicide for the postharvest control of green mold in lemon packinghouses., (Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

A simple method for the separation of the enantiomers of the fungicide imazalil was developed. Racemic imazalil was separated into its enantiomers with an enantiomeric purity of 99% using HPLC-UV with an enantioselective column (permethylated cyclodextrin) operated in reversed phase mode (water with 0.2% trimethylamine and 0.08% acetic acid and methanol). The absolute configuration of the separated enantiomers was assigned and unequivocally confirmed by optical rotation as well as by vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) and electronic circular dichroism (ECD) combined with ab-initio calculations. The same enantioselective column was also used to develop an HPLC-MS/MS method for the quantification of imazalil enantiomers. The HPLC-MS/MS method reached limits of quantification (LOQs) of 0.025mg/mL with 5μL injections. This method was used to verify imazalil concentrations and enantiomeric fractions in samples from an in vitro test on effects on human steroidogenesis (H295R steroidogenesis assay). The quantification verified the stability of the enantiomers of imazalil during the in vitro tests., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Citrus fruit-packaging plants (FPP) produce large wastewater volumes with high loads of fungicides like ortho-phenylphenol (OPP) and imazalil (IMZ). No methods are in place for the treatment of those effluents and biobeds appear as a viable alternative. We employed a column study to investigate the potential of spent mushroom substrate (SMS) of Pleurotus ostreatus, either alone or in mixture with straw and soil plus a mixture of straw /soil to retain and dissipate IMZ and OPP. The role of P. ostreatus on fungicides dissipation was also investigated by studying in parallel the performance of fresh mushroom substrate of P. ostreatus (FMS) and measuring lignolytic enzymatic activity in the leachates. All substrates effectively reduced the leaching of OPP and IMZ which corresponded to 0.014-1.1% and 0.120-0.420% of their initial amounts respectively. Mass balance analysis revealed that FMS and SMS/Straw/Soil (50/25/25 by vol) offered the most efficient removal of OPP and IMZ from wastewaters respectively. Regardless of the substrate, OPP was restricted in the top 0-20cm of the columns and was bioavailable (extractable with water), compared to IMZ which was less bioavailable (extractable with acetonitrile) but diffused at deeper layers (20-50, 50-80cm) in the SMS- and Straw/Soil-columns. PLFAs showed that fungal abundance was significantly lower in the top layer of all substrates from where the highest pesticide amounts were recovered suggesting an inhibitory effect of fungicides on total fungi in the substrates tested. Our data suggest that biobeds packed with SMS-rich substrates could ensure the efficient removal of IMZ and OPP from wastewaters of citrus FPP., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)