Detection of Foodborne Pathogens and Mycotoxins in Eggs and Chicken Feeds from Farms to Retail Markets

Abstract

Contamination by foodborne pathogens and mycotoxins was examined in 475 eggs and 20 feed samples collected from three egg layer farms, three egg-processing units, and five retail markets in Korea. Microbial contamination with Salmonella species, Escherichia coli, and Arcobacter species was examined by bacterial culture and multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The contamination levels of aflatoxins, ochratoxins, and zearalenone in eggs and chicken feeds were simultaneously analyzed with high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with fluorescence detection after the post-derivatization. While E. coli was isolated from 9.1% of eggs, Salmonella species were not isolated. Arcobacter species were detected in 0.8% of eggs collected from egg layers by PCR only. While aflatoxins, ochratoxins, and zearalenone were found in 100%, 100%, and 85% of chicken feeds, their contamination levels were below the maximum acceptable levels (1.86, 2.24, and 147.53 μg/kg, respectively). However, no eggs were contaminated with aflatoxins, ochratoxins, or zearalenone. Therefore, the risk of contamination by mycotoxins and microbes in eggs and chicken feeds is considered negligible and unlikely to pose a threat to human health.

Potential risk of some pathogens in table eggs

“…Many authors reported that Salmonella failed to be detected which agreed with findings of this study as (El-Leboudy et al, 2011,Ghasemian Safaei et al, 2011, Mahdavi et al, 2012, El-Kholy et al, 2014, Abdel-Latif and Saad, 2015, Lee et al, 2016. Higher percentages of Salmonella were illustrated by (Adesiyun et al, 2005, Evêncio-Luz et al, 2012, Ghazi and Amer, 2015, Amin, 2017, Awny et al, 2018, Al Momani et al, 2018.…”

“…Higher percentages of Salmonella were illustrated by (Adesiyun et al, 2005, Evêncio-Luz et al, 2012, Ghazi and Amer, 2015, Amin, 2017, Awny et al, 2018, Al Momani et al, 2018. Failure to detect fecal E. coli in our results agreed with (Bahobail et al, 2012, Siriporn et al, 2015., while True fecal E. coli were shown with high incidence rate in the results of (Adesiyun et al, 2005, El-Kholy et al, 2014, Eid et al, 2015, Mansour et al, 2015, Elafify et al, 2016, Lee et al, 2016, Momani et al, 2018.…”

Mycotoxin Determination in Animal Feed: An LC-FLD Method for Simultaneous Quantification of Aflatoxins, Ochratoxins and Zearelanone in This Matrix

“…A search of the literature in PubMed, including the search terms "Mycotoxin AND feed AND fluorescence," limited to the last 10 years, revealed a total of 20 studies on the analysis of mycotoxins in feed (no raw materials) using LC-FLD [4,5,9,16,17,30,[32][33][34][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49]. AFs are the most widely studied mycotoxins [4,5,9,16,17,30,[40][41][42][43], particularly AFB1, as a single mycotoxin [44,[47][48][49].…”

Chemical assessment of mycotoxin contaminants and veterinary residues in Costa Rican animal feed

“…Maximum concentrations reach for aflatoxin are 22.39 (AFB 2 ) and 21.84 (AFG 2 ) μg kg − 1 (Table 4). Animal feed contaminated with mycotoxins can negatively impact health, productiveness and general well-being of the animal additionally, carry-over to other food matrices [e.g., milk (Fink-Gremmels 2008) and eggs (Lee et al 2016)] is a real concern. Of special concern is aflatoxin prevalence in feeds as they are recognized as cytotoxic, teratogenic, and immunotoxic (Granados-Chinchilla et al 2017).…”