Fungal Load, Coliform and Aflatoxins in Wheat Flour of Lahore Metropolitan City

Abstract

In Pakistan, wheat flour is mostly utilized for making flat breads locally called chapattis. Other uses of wheat flour are in bakery products manufacturing. It is an important constituent of daily diet of people. Shelf life of wheat flour is one of the most important factors for its quality determination. Wheat flour is often tainted with pathogenic fungal species and their toxic secondary metabolites called Mycotoxins. The present study was designed to make a comparative analysis of Microbiological quality (fungal load and total coliform count) and detection of aflatoxins in raw and branded whole wheat flour samples of Lahore Metropolitan city. Total 100 samples were collected for determination of fungal load, coliform and aflatoxins. The Standardized methods were applied to count the colony forming units of fungal species and total coliform bacteria respectively. The results indicated both branded and raw whole wheat flour groups were of good quality for human consumption. However, the microbiological quality of branded whole flour was better than raw whole wheat flour. There was a significant difference (P<0.05) in fungal load of raw and branded whole wheat flour. Similarly, coliform bacteria were only cultured form the samples of raw flour. In the last stage of study, aflatoxins level was analysed by using a commercially available kit. All the samples of both raw and branded whole wheat flours were negative for aflatoxins detection. The overall quality of raw and branded whole wheat flours in Lahore city is satisfactory for consumers.

Detection and analysis of mycoflora associated corn and wheat flours and their toxins

“…2. b-Fungal identification: Pure cultures seven days old were identified at the genus or species level was carried out according to the cultural and morphological characters with the help of available literature found principally in publications by [27] for the genus Aspergillus, [5] for the genera of imperfect [29] for Aspergillus and Penicillium). The frequency of identified fungal species was calculated according to the number of isolates of a genus or species/total number of fungal isolates x 100.…”

“…Also, [11] isolated and identified several fungal species associated with corn flour as Aspergillus spp., A. flavus, A. niger, A. terreus, and Penicillium spp. [29] tested some food grains and grain flour market samples. They found that contamination of aflatoxin B 1 was 68.18% in food grains, whereas 100% in grain flour, possibly due to improper post-harvest technology and storage conditions.…”

“…The levels of total AF (p = 0.03), AFG 2 (p = 0.02), and AFB 1 (p = 0.003) were significantly higher in samples obtained from high-risk areas. Also, [29] reported that the contamination of aflatoxin B1 was found to be 63.16% in food grains, whereas 100% in grain flour and 68.18% in total food grains and grain flour with a mean concentration (ppb) of 75.18, 60.4 and 72.23 respectively. [19] found 23 samples (57.5%) out of 40 samples of corn flour have shown positive for aflatoxin (35% of samples have shown positive for G 1 , 5% of samples have shown positive for G2, 50% of samples have shown positive for B 1 , 32.5% samples have shown positives for B 2 ).…”