Molecular and Biological Detection of Aflatoxin B1 in Food and Food Products to Reduce Health Risk

Mohamed Abd Ellatif^1,2, Basiouny El-Gamal¹, Elsayed Hafez, E.³ & Arshi Malik¹

¹Department of Clinical Biochemistry, College of Medicine, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia
²Department of Medical Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt
³Department of Plant Protection and Biomolecular Diagnosis,City of Scientific Research and Technology Applications, Arid Lands Cultivation Research Institute (ALCRI),Alexandria, Egypt

Prof. Mohamed Abd Ellatif, Department of Clinical Biochemistry, College of Medicine, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia & Department of Medical Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt.

Keywords: Aflatoxins; ELISA; HPLC; Mycotoxins; PCR; Recombinant Antibody

Abstract

Humans are exposed to aflatoxins by consuming foods contaminated with products of fungal growth. Because aflatoxins, especially aflatoxin B1, are potent carcinogens in some animals, there has beengreat interest to study the effects of long-term exposure to low levels of these important mycotoxins on humans.The main aim of present study was to develop specific PCR and ELISA (using recombinant antibody) methods for the direct detection of aflatoxin B1 in contaminated food and food products.In this study, different food samples were collected from the Egyptian market and Aflatoxin B1 was determined by HPLC and by VICAM’s monoclonal antibodies based commercial strips.Results showed that 78% of collected food samples were contaminated by Aflatoxin B1. The contaminated samples were subjected to detectionby specific PCR of the afiR gene (aflatoxin B1 gene) and the PCR results confirmed the results observed by the two previous methods.

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).