Mycotoxins Production by Fusarium and Aspergillus Species Isolated from Cornmeal

Abstract

Corn is a vital food source for human consumption, animal feed as well as industrial processing. However, corn faces repeated spoilage and contamination by a huge range of fungi especially by Fusarium and Aspergillus species. These fungi are known of producing mycotoxins such as fumonisins (FBs), moniliformin (MON), zearalenone (ZEA), beauvericin (BEA) and aflatoxins (AFs). The main objective of this study was to quantify the mycotoxins produced by both fungi associated with cornmeal in Malaysia. The extracted mycotoxins were qualitatively analyzed using A. salina bioassay, and quantitatively using Ultra-fast Performance Liquid Chromatography (UFLC). Three hundred and fourteen isolates of microfungi were obtained, 90.5% isolates belonged to Aspergillus species, namely A. flavus (76.8%), A. niger (7.6%), A. nidulans (4.5%) and A. fumigatus (1.6%). Another 9.6% isolates were Fusarium species, identified as F. verticillioides (4.5%), F. semitectum (3.2%) and F. proliferatum (1.9%). As for the mycotoxin analysis, out of 40 isolates of Aspergillus, 29 isolates produced AFB 1 and only two isolates produced AFB 2 . Fifteen out of 16 Fusarium isolates produced MON, 12 isolates produced BEA and all isolates produced FB 1 , but none of them produced ZEA. The analysis of A. salina revealed that all the five mycotoxins extracts were toxic to the brine shrimp despite the concentration of the mycotoxins.

Diversity and Toxigenicity of Mycobiota in Grain Corn: A Case Study at Pioneer Grain Corn Plantations in Terengganu, Malaysia

“…Later, two separate studies that were conducted for mycotoxin contamination in cornmeal had described the incidence of aflatoxins in most samples and found (in decreasing order) fumonisins (i.e., FB 1 and FB 2 ), OTA, DON, HT-2, T-2, and ZEN [78,79]. Further, another study on cornmeal [80] found that all F. verticillioides isolates investigated (n = 16/16) were able to produce FB 1 , and a high number of A. flavus isolates were able to produce AFB 1 (n = 29/40). Moreover, they also reported that F. proliferatum, F. semitectum, and F. verticillioides were able to produce moniliformin (MON, n = 3/3, n = 6/6, and n = 6/7, respectively) and beauvericin (BEA, n = 3/3, n = 4/6, and n = 5/7, respectively) in the samples.…”

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“…Nirmaladevi et al (2016) reported that other species such as F. oxysporum were responsible for more than 80% of post-harvest rots in tomato fruits in India. Fusarium species involved in this rot contaminate tomato fruits with various mycotoxins (Wisniewka et al, 2011;Maja et al, 2012;Zainudin et al, 2015;Wamalwa et al, 2018;Srinivas et al, 2019). These secondary metabolites produced by fungi are known to be toxic to many organisms.…”

Isolation and Identification of the Antimicrobial Agent Beauvericin from the EndophyticFusarium oxysporum5-19 with NMR and ESI-MS/MS

“…Beauvericin ( Figure 1 ), a cyclic hexadepsipeptide with alternating N -methyl-phenylalanyl and D -hydroxy-isovaleryl residues, was firstly discovered from the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana [ 3 ]. As one of chemical contaminants, it is mainly detected in maize kernels and derived products infected by phytopathogenic fungi, including Aspergillus [ 4 ], Cordyceps [ 5 ], and Fusarium [ 6 – 9 ] species. Originally, this cyclodepsipeptide was found to be toxic to human and animal tissues and cells [ 10 ].…”