Research article

Mycobiota and aflatoxin contamination of some grains collected from different places in Upper Egypt

AHM El-Said¹, AM Moharram², A Saleem ^1,3* and MA Mohamed¹

¹Botany Department, Faculty of Science, South Valley University, 83523 Qena, Egypt

²Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt

³Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Taibah University, 30002 Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah, Saudi Arabia

*Corresponding Author E-mail: asaleem@hotmail.com

Accepted 02 March 2015

Abstract

Fifty species and one species variety belonging to twenty six (26) genera were isolated from Barley, Corn, Rice and Sorghum grains (20 samples each) on glucose, starch and cellulose-Czapek's agar media at 28ºC. The most common genera from the four types of grains on the three types of media were: Acremonium, Alternaria, Aspergillus, Emericella, Eurotium, Fusarium, Penicillium, Rhizopus and Setosphaeria. From the above genera the most common species were; A. strictum, A. alternata, A. citri, A. candidus, A. flavus, A. niger, E. nidulans, E. herbariorum, F. oxysporum, P. oxalicum, R. stolonifer and S. rostrata. Generally, A. flavus was one of the most common species isolated from different grains samples tested. Out of eighty samples, forty one of different grains samples were contaminated with Aspergillus flavus. Experiment designed for aflatoxins detection in grains samples showed the presence of aflatoxins

B₁, B₂, G₁ and G₂  by using lateral flow technique. The results showed that 34% of the samples were positively contaminated with aflatoxins exceeded to 10 ppb (>10 Part per billion) and 66% of the samples were less than or equal to 10 ppb (≤ 10 Part per billion). Also, individually 30% corn, 30% barley, 60% sorghum and 20% rice samples exhibited positive results for aflatoxins contamination. These results indicated that the sorghum was the most aflatoxin contaminated samples and the rice was the least contaminated grains.

Keywords: Mycobiota, grains, mycotoxins