Co-occurrence of aflatoxins and ochratoxin A in cereal flours commercialised in Turkey

Abstract

In this study, we aim to determine co-occurrence of aflatoxins (AFs) and ochratoxin A (OTA) in cereal flours commercialised in Corum, Turkey. One hundred cereal flours were checked for target fungal metabolites between the years 2011 and 2013. The samples were analysed by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FLD) after immunoaffinity column (IAC) clean-up procedure. The method was successfully validated in accordance to European Union guidelines acceptance criteria for specificity, linearity, sensitivity, trueness and repeatability. All the results are well below the maximum limits specified in the EU legislation. AFs were detected neither wheat flour nor rice flour samples, while 66.7% of maize flours contained AFs with maximum concentration of 1.12 μg kg−1. OTA was present in 26.7% of wheat flour, 41.7% of maize flour and 18.8% of rice flour samples, with mean levels of 0.247, 0.218 and 0.154 μg kg−1, respectively. The co-occurence of AFs and OTA was found in 9 maize flour samples.