FIG. 5.
Degradation of ZEN under conditions of different water activities and temperatures (aw of 0.90 at 20°C; aw of 0.97 at 25°C; and aw of 1.00 at 30°C). (a) Degradation of ZEN by crude proteins extracted from T3 seeds at 4 weeks after pollination. The enzymatic reaction was carried out for 24 h. The vertical axis represents concentrations of ZEN in the reaction mixture. (b) Degradation of ZEN in vivo by mature T3 seeds at 4 weeks after pollination. Maize kernels artificially contaminated with ZEN as described in the Fig. 4 legend (placed under the conditions for 48 h) were analyzed as described in Materials and Methods. The vertical axis represents the amount of ZEN (μg) per gram of seed.