Aflatoxins in mesir paste

Abstract

In this research, 42 mesir paste samples produced by a limited number of manufacturers in Manisa, Turkey, were analysed for aflatoxin content by high-performance liquid chromatography with a fluorescence detector after pre-separation using immunoaffinity columns. A good correlation was found with good performance in terms of precision for the method. Limit of detection-limit of quantitation of AFG2-AFB2 and AFG1-AFB1 were 0.05/0.15 and 0.03/0.09 µg/kg, respectively. AFG2, AFG1 and AFB1 were detected in 29%, 71% and 52% samples, whereas AFB2 was not detected in any sample. AFtotal, AFG2, AFG1 and AFB1 content varied between 0.04/10.20 µg/kg, 0.07/0.42 µg/kg, 2.02/10.11 µg/kg and 0.04/0.11 µg/kg, respectively. About 9.5% of samples were found to be above the maxium limit (ML) for AFtotal (10 µg/kg), but none of samples exceeded the ML for AFB1 (5 µg/kg) as set by the European Union for spices. According to the results, it was concluded that traditional products like mesir paste which contains different types of spices should be examined in terms of aflatoxins.

Keywords

• Aflatoxins
• HPLC-FLD
• immunoaffinity column
• mesir paste
• total aflatoxin