Occurrence of mycotoxins and associated mycoflora in peanut cake product (kulikuli) marketed in Benin

Abstract

The detection of spoilage fungi and mycotoxins contamination in peanut cake product, popularly called ‘‘kulikuli’’ was investigated in this study. Forty five major markets were sampled and peanut cake products were analyzed for aflatoxins and ochratoxin A contaminations, and associated mycoflora. Total coliform count ranged between 1.6 × 10¹ and 14.0 × 10² CFU g^-1, while the fungal count was between 1.0 to 8.1 × 10² CFU g^-1. Bacteria isolated from peanut cake product were Eschericha coli, Klebsiella spp. and Clostridium spp. The fungal isolates include Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus parasiticus, Aspergillus spp., Fusarium spp., and Penicillium spp. being the dominant microflora in decreasing frequency of occurrence. High concentrations of aflatoxins were detected. They were between 25.54 to 455.22 μg/kg for AFB₁, 33.94 to 491.20 μg/kg for AFB₂, 0.41 to 100.33 μg/kg for AFG₁ and 22.04 to 87.73 μg/kg for AFG₂. Ochratoxin A concentrations ranged between 0.3 and 2 μg/kg. The coexistence of aflatoxins and ochratoxin A (OTA) in peanut was also established. The results show that peanut cake product sold in market was highly contaminated and therefore unacceptable for human nutrition.

Key words: Peanut cake, fungi, aflatoxins, ochratoxin A, liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS).