Worldwide aflatoxin contamination of agricultural products and foods: From occurrence to control

Abstract

Aflatoxins represent a global public health and economic concern as they are responsible for significant adverse health and economic issues affecting consumers and farmers worldwide. Produced by fungal species from the Aspergillus genus, aflatoxins are a toxic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic group of fungal metabolites that routinely contaminate food and agricultural products. Climate and diet are essential factors in the aflatoxin contamination of food and subsequent human exposure process. Countries with warmer climates and staple foods that are aflatoxin‐susceptible shoulder a substantial portion of the global aflatoxins burden. Enactment of regulations, prevention of pre‐ and postharvest contamination, decontamination, and detoxification have been used to prevent human dietary exposure to aflatoxin. Exploiting their chemical and structural properties, means are devised to detect and quantify aflatoxin presence in foods. Herein, recent developments in several important aspects impacting aflatoxin contamination of the food supply, including: fungal producers of the toxin, occurrence in food, worldwide regulations, detection methods, preventive strategies, and removal and degradation methods were reviewed and presented. In conclusion, aflatoxin continues to be a major food safety problem, especially in developing countries where regulatory limits do not exist or are not adequately enforced. Finally, knowledge gaps and current challenges in each discussed aspect were identified, and new solutions were proposed.

Aflatoxin Contamination, Its Impact and Management Strategies: An Updated Review

“…Owing to global climate change, aflatoxin is an emerging threat in regions that were previously free from this menace. Recently, there have been a few reports of aflatoxin in different regions of Europe [ 29 ].…”

Mycotoxins binder supplementation alleviates aflatoxin B1 toxic effects on the immune response and intestinal barrier function in broilers

“…Aflatoxin ( AF ) is a secondary metabolite of Aspergillus species, which can contaminate food and agricultural products ( Olarte et al 2012 ; Jallow et al 2021 ). As one form of AF, aflatoxin B 1 ( AFB 1 ) is well known as the potent and dangerous teratogen, carcinogen classified in group 1 by IARC and immune-suppressor produced naturally by Aspergillus flavus ( A. flavus ) or Aspergillus parasiticus ( A. parasiticus ) for human and animals ( Fouad et al, 2019 ; Jallow et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Aflatoxin ( AF ) is a secondary metabolite of Aspergillus species, which can contaminate food and agricultural products ( Olarte et al 2012 ; Jallow et al 2021 ). As one form of AF, aflatoxin B 1 ( AFB 1 ) is well known as the potent and dangerous teratogen, carcinogen classified in group 1 by IARC and immune-suppressor produced naturally by Aspergillus flavus ( A. flavus ) or Aspergillus parasiticus ( A. parasiticus ) for human and animals ( Fouad et al, 2019 ; Jallow et al, 2021 ). Chicken exposed to ABF 1 is reported to depress feed intake, growth performance, immune response, damage organs, disturb the balance of gut microbiota, and increase mortality ( Williams et al, 2011 ; Chang et al, 2020 ; Rashidi et al, 2020 ).…”

Binding Characteristic of Various Antibody Formats Against Aflatoxins

“…Because aflatoxin contamination is a worldwide problem, different countries, regions, and international agencies have created regulatory limits based on both socioeconomics and scientific factors . Currently, aflatoxin regulations have been set in approximately 120 countries around the word either in the form of total aflatoxins or AFB1 .…”