title: Occurrence of aflatoxins in selected processed foods from Pakistan.
abstract: A total of 125 (ready to eat) processed food samples (70 intended for infant and 55 for adult intake) belonging to 20 different food categories were analyzed for aflatoxins contamination using Reverse Phase High Performance Liquid Chromatography (RP-HPLC) with fluorescent detection. A solvent mixture of acetonitrile-water was used for the extraction followed by immunoaffinity clean-up to enhance sensitivity of the method. The limit of detection (LOD) (0.01-0.02 ng·g(-1)) and limit of quantification (LOQ) (0.02 ng·g(-1)) was established for aflatoxins based on signal to noise ratio of 3:1 and 10:1, respectively. Of the processed food samples tested, 38% were contaminated with four types of aflatoxins, i.e., AFB1 (0.02-1.24 μg·kg(-1)), AFB2 (0.02-0.37 μg·kg(-1)), AFG1 (0.25-2.7 μg·kg(-1)) and AFG2 (0.21-1.3 μg·kg(-1)). In addition, the results showed that 21% of the processed foods intended for infants contained AFB1 levels higher than the European Union permissible limits (0.1 μg·kg(-1)), while all of those intended for adult consumption had aflatoxin contamination levels within the permitted limits.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad 38040, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Muhammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mushtaq
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad 38040, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Bushra
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sultana
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of Sargodha, Sargodha 40100, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Farooq
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Anwar
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad 38040, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Muhammad Zargham
authors.initials: MZ
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.affiliation: Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Serdang 43400, Selangor, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Muhammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ashrafuzzaman
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000348:Aflatoxins / Q000032:analysis*; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D056148:Chromatography, Reverse-Phase; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007225:Infant Food / Q000032:analysis; D057230:Limit of Detection; D010154:Pakistan; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
chemical_list: D000348:Aflatoxins