HPLC Determination of Aflatoxins in Wheat Grains Collected from Central Areas of the Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

Food is one of the most intimate and important components of our chemical environments. Good food is not only expected to look fresh and tasty but it must be free from all contaminants. Mycotoxins are natural food and feed contaminants mainly produced by moulds of genera Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus paraciticus, Aspergillus nomius 1 . Mycotoxin contaminated food consumption is associated with several cases of human poisoning or mycotoxicosis and some times resulting in death 2 . Fungus invades, most commonly, cereal foods in hotter countries due to which shortage of food was faced 3 .Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is the leading food grain of Pakistan and being the staple diet of the people. Wheat provides energy, which is a rich source of carbohydrates, magnesium, manganese, proteins, vitamin, fiber and minerals. Different by-products are formed from raw wheat that are used in bakeries for different food products. It occupies a central position on agricultural policies and economics of the country. It contributes 12.5 % to the value added in agriculture and 2.9 % to GDP. Wheat is cultivated on an area of 8 million hectares and its annual production was about 18.47 million tons in 2008-2009. At farm level, the storage consists of mud bins, metallic bins, concrete rooms, jute bags and wooden boxes. Whole

Aflatoxins and ochratoxin A in maize of Punjab, Pakistan

“…However, in the present investigation, aflatoxin content in maize ranged from < LOD to 168.2 µg kg −1 with average values of 29.1, 36.9 and 102.2 µg kg −1 for the southern irrigated zone, northern irrigated zone and arid (rain-fed) zone, respectively. These results were in close agreement with those of Ahsan et al (2010) and Khatoon et al (2012). According to Grybauskas et al (2000), maize containing 20 µg kg −1 aflatoxin or more should not be sold commercially and not be milled for human consumption.…”

“…Moulds are distributed widely as environmental contaminants and under favourable conditions of temperature and humidity, grow on commodities like maize (Brera et al 1998) and produce mycotoxins. In Pakistan, few studies have reported on mycotoxin contamination in local varieties of maize during the last three years (Ahsan et al 2010;Shah et al 2010;Ishrat et al 2012;Khatoon et al 2012). Furthermore, recent domestic surveys report the presence of mycotoxins in chillies (Iqbal et al 2009) fruits and vegetables (Sahar et al 2009) and poultry feed (Saleemi et al 2010;Anjum et al 2011;Rashid et al 2012).…”

Natural Occurrence of Mycotoxins in Food and Feed: Pakistan Perspective

“…Maize is found to be a favorable substrate for fungal growth and mycotoxin formation (Nesci and others ; Trung and others ). The warm and humid conditions of Pakistan are suitable for fungal infection and toxigenesis during growth, harvesting, processing, and storage of maize (Ahsan and others ). A variety of fungi, including A. parasiticus, A. flavus, F. proliferatum, F. verticillioides , and P. verrucosum can damage maize (Cardwell and others ; Abbas and others ).…”

“…In Pakistan, mycotoxin occurrence in maize is reported from mainly Punjab and KP provinces. Maize grain samples from Punjab (Faisalabad) were analyzed for aflatoxin presence by reverse‐phase high‐performance liquid chromatography (RP‐HPLC) (Ahsan and others ). Aflatoxin contamination (up to 62 μg/kg) was found in 34 out of 40 samples, with highest levels in samples collected from rural areas (90%) and some of the samples exceeded the permissible limits established by EU.…”

“…Heavily contaminated foods with molds can be avoided by individuals able to afford the higher quality food costs, thus people in high‐income countries are less exposed to higher mycotoxin levels. Fungal spoilage of food is more common in hotter areas (Ahsan and others ) and, in general, commodities in areas with high temperature and humidity are prone to contamination by the most harmful mycotoxins (Thompson and Henke ). The climate for the greater part of the year remains hot in Pakistan, where high temperature (30 to 48 °C), and relative humidity ranging from 25% to 50%, prevail in summer (Chaudhary and others ).…”