Research Publications (Food Safety)

Aflatoxins belong to a group of highly carcinogenic mycotoxins, produced mainly by Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus in various agricultural food commodities. It is hard to eliminate them from food and feed due to their high stability. Aflatoxin contamination in food grains, particularly peanut and maize, continues to cause significant health concerns in the population of developing nations. They can be fatal to humans and animals.

The problem of aflatoxin contamination emerged gradually in the field of food safety. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is an ultra-sensitive and non-destructive spectroscopy technology with extensive application prospects in the detection field. In this paper, with the detection of AFB1 as the target, Au@Ag NPs substrate with uniform morphology and strong SERS effect was prepared.

Background Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) is found in the milk of cows exposed to feed spoiled by Aspergillus fungi species. These fungi may produce the secondary metabolite aflatoxin B1, which is converted in the cow liver by hydroxylation to AFM1 and is then expressed in milk. AFM1 is regulated in milk and other dairy products because it can cause serious health issues, such as liver and kidney cancers, in humans and is an immunosuppressant.

Aflatoxins are among the main carcinogens threatening food and feed safety while imposing major detection challenges to the agrifood industry. Today, aflatoxins are typically detected using destructive and sample-based chemical analysis that are not optimally suited to sense their local presence in the food chain. Therefore, we pursued the development of a non-destructive optical sensing technique based on fluorescence spectroscopy.

Aflatoxin contamination in peanut kernels seriously harms the health of humans and causes significant economic losses. Rapid and accurate detection of aflatoxin is necessary to minimize its contamination. However, current detection methods are time-consuming, expensive and destructive to samples.

Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) contamination in peanut oil can lead to serious food safety problems. Thus, the development of AFB1 decontamination technology is an urgent and necessary matter. Herein, a renewable and effective biomass-derived adsorbent, namely magnetic rice husk-based biochar (MRHB), was prepared and successfully used for the removal of AFB1 from peanut oil. The adsorption conditions, adsorption mechanism, reusability and cytotoxicity of MRHB were systematically studied.

The present work investigated the potential of fungal species from grain maize farms in Malaysia as antagonists against the indigenous mycotoxigenic fungal species and their subsequent mycotoxin production.

The present study strengthens the food preservative potential of Chamaerops humilis extracts viz. hexane extract, chloroform extract, ethanol extract, chloroform extract, and methanol extract based on their antifungal, antiaflatoxin, and antioxidant efficacy. The isolation of molds from peanuts were carried out by the suspension-dilution technique and inoculation on agar medium.

Determination of aflatoxins as a group of potent contaminations in many food products is a common analysis in food quality control laboratories. For quantification of the four most toxic aflatoxins (AFs) (i,e. AF B1, B2, G1, and G2) in food and feed, a standard method involving a liquid extraction step followed by immunoaffinity purification and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is often used.

In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), millions of people depend on maize as a primary staple. However, maize consumers in SSA may be exposed to malnutrition due to vitamin A deficiency (VAD) and unsafe aflatoxin levels, which can lead to serious economic and public health problems. Provitamin A (PVA) biofortified maize has been developed to alleviate VAD and may have additional benefits such as reduced aflatoxin contamination.

Aflatoxin, with higher toxicity, is widely found in grains such as peanut and corn. This study proposes an unsupervised learning method to detect aflatoxin based on deep spectral features.

In the present study, we aimed to evaluate the concentration and health risk of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), heavy metals (HMs), and phthalate acid esters (PAEs) in peanut samples in Shandong Province, China, and 255 peanut samples were collected from 20 counties in 2020.

The aim of this study was to monitor the aflatoxin M1 contamination in raw milk and drinking milk in Hungary over a one-year period. A total of 474 milk samples of raw milk (n=278) commercial milk (n=196) were collected and analysed between September 2021 and November 2022. Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) determined the concentration of AFM1.

The uses of natural plant origin bioactive compounds are emerging as a promising strategy to detoxify aflatoxin B1 (AFB1). This study aimed to explore the potential of cooking, phytochemicals content, and antioxidant activities derived from garlic, ginger, cardamom, and black cumin to detoxify AFB1 on spice mix red pepper powder (berbere) and sauté.

Mycotoxins are toxic compounds produced by certain strains of fungi that can contaminate raw feed materials. Once ingested, even in small doses, they cause multiple health issues for animals and, downstream, for people consuming meat. It was proposed that inclusion of antioxidant-rich plant-derived feed might diminish the harmful effects of mycotoxins, maintaining the farm animals’ health and meat quality for human consumption.

Mycotoxins can be transferred to breast milk during lactation. Hence, the presence of multiple mycotoxins (aflatoxins B1, B2, G1, G2, and M1, alpha and beta zearalanol, deoxynivalenol, fumonisins B1, B2, B3, and hydrolyzed B1, nivalenol, ochratoxin A, ochratoxin alpha, and zearalenone) in breast milk samples was assessed in our study. Furthermore, the relationship between total fumonisins and pre/post-harvest and the women’s dietary practices was examined.

The major safety risk of maize grain is contamination with mycotoxins. In this study, a maize-coating formulation containing freeze-dried culture filtrate of Streptomyces philanthi RL-1-178 (DCF RL-1-178) was developed and evaluated to prevent the growth of mycotoxins during maize grain storage. In vitro studies using confrontation tests on PDA plates indicated that S.

This work established a novel nucleic acid aptamer sensor for the sensitive and selective detection of AFB1 (Aflatoxin B1), which has important implication for food safety. In a word, we synthesized MXene/MWCNTs/NiCo2O4 composite nanomaterials to improve the sensitivity of the aptamer sensor. The surface of the composite nanomaterials was modified with PDA (poly dopamine) in order to immobilize the NH2-cDNA-aptamer complex on the electrode surface by the Schiff base reaction.

International Journal of Dairy Technology, EarlyView. Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) is a carcinogenic mycotoxin mostly found in dairy products.

Recently, aflatoxin exposure especially through maize and groundnuts has been associated with growth impairment in children. Infants and children are considered to be more susceptible to toxins because of their lower body weight, higher metabolic rate, and lower ability to detoxify. On the other hand, for women of reproductive age, aflatoxin exposure may not only affect their health but also that of their foetus in the case of pregnancy.

Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) is a mycotoxin widely present in animal feed and human food, posing a serious threat to animal and human health. This study was aim to illustrate the mechanism of the protective role of MT against AFB1-induced hepatotoxicity, as well as to explore the feasibility of enhancing the tolerance of poultry to AFB1 by upregulating the expression of hepatic MT.

Aflatoxins (AFs) represent one of the main mycotoxins produced by Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus, with the most prevalent and lethal subtypes being AFB1, AFB2, AFG1, and AFG2. AFs are responsible for causing significant public health issues and economic concerns that affect consumers and farmers globally. Chronic exposure to AFs has been linked to liver cancer, oxidative stress, and fetal growth abnormalities among other health-related risks.

Silage can be contaminated with mycotoxins and accidental fungi after aerobic exposure. The study assessed the effects of bunker silos (BS), round bales (RB), and silage bags (SB) on the nutritional characteristics, fermentation quality, aerobic stability, mycotoxin levels and microbial communities of whole-plant corn silage (WPCS). After 90 days of fermentation, silages were opened and sampled at 0, 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 days of exposure.

Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) is a commonly occurring toxicant in animal and human diets, leading to hazardous effects on health. AFB1 is known to be a hepato-toxicant, and the intestinal barrier may play a crucial role in reversing AFB1-induced liver injury.

The aim of this study was to determine the microbial diversity and mycotoxin profile of artisanal infant flours commonly vended in public healthcare centres and retail markets in Côte d’Ivoire. Thus, maize, millet, sorghum, soya and multigrain (mix of different cereals) flour samples collected from different localities were first, analysed for nutritional composition, then for microbial communities using high-throughput sequencing and for mycotoxins through UHPLC-MS/MS method.