In April 2004, one of the largest aflatoxicosis outbreaks occurred in rural Kenya, resulting in 317 cases and 125 deaths. Aflatoxin-contaminated homegrown maize was the source of the outbreak, but the extent of regional contamination and status of maize in commercial markets (market maize) were unknown. We conducted a cross-sectional survey to assess the extent of market maize contamination and...

Humans and animals are exposed to aflatoxins, toxic carcinogenic fungal metabolites, through consumption of contaminated food and feed. Aspergillus flavus, the primary causal agent of crop aflatoxin contamination, is composed of phenotypically and genotypically diverse vegetative compatibility groups (VCGs). Molecular data suggest that VCGs largely behave as clones with certain VCGs exhibiting ...

Aflatoxin contamination of nuts is an increasing concern to the consumer's health. Portugal is a big producer of almonds, but there is no scientific knowledge on the safety of those nuts, in terms of mycotoxins. The aim of this paper was to study the incidence of aflatoxigenic fungi and aflatoxin contamination of 21 samples of Portuguese almonds, and its evolution throughout the various stages ...

The aim of the present investigation was to check natural aflatoxin contamination and aflatoxigenic potential of Aspergillus flavus strains isolated from chilgoza pine nuts. Fifty eight samples of chilgoza pine nuts, randomly purchased from retail shops and local markets of different locations of Jammu, were subjected to mycological analysis for isolation of Aspergillus flavus isolates using st...

Executive Summary Senegal is one of the lead producers of groundnuts, also known as peanuts, in the world. Since groundnuts are a cash crop and food crop in Senegal, their production contributes significantly to food security, poverty reduction, livestock feeding, and national trade development. In response to rising global food prices in early 2008, the Government of Senegal (GOS) supported in...

Aflatoxin contamination costs the U.S. peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) industry over $20 million annually. The development of peanut cultivars with resistance to preharvest aflatoxin contamination (PAC) would reduce these costs. Screening techniques have been developed that can measure genetic differences in aflatoxin contamination and they have been used to identify accessions that exhibited rela...

One strategy to reduce aflatoxin contamination of maize and cottonseed is to introduce spores of non-aflatoxigenic strains as competitors. Using isogenic mutants we show that, upon 5 or 20 min exposure to 302 nm (UVB) light, the viability of conidia of Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus mutants lacking the ability to accumulate any aflatoxin precursor metabolite is reduced five-fold...

Doster, M. A., Cotty, P. J., and Michailides, T. J. 2014. Evaluation of the atoxigenic Aspergillus flavus strain AF36 in pistachio orchards. Plant Dis. 98:948-956. The atoxigenic strain Aspergillus flavus AF36, which has been extensively used as a biocontrol agent in commercial corn and cotton fields to reduce aflatoxin contamination, was applied in research pistachio orchards from 2002 to 2005...

Peanut pods are easily infected by aflatoxin-producing Aspergillus sp.ecies from field soil. To assess the aflatoxin-producing Aspergillus sp. in different peanut field soils, 344 aflatoxin-producing Aspergillus strains were isolated from 600 soil samples of four agroecological zones in China (the Southeast coastal zone (SEC), the Yangtze River zone (YZR), the Yellow River zone (YR) and the Nor...