TY - JOUR AU - Medjdoub, Ammar-Rachad AU - Moussaoui , Abdellah AU - Benmehdi , Houcine PY - 2023/04/24 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Toxigenic fungi and contamination by AFB1 in Algerian traditional foods markets JF - European Journal of Biological Research JA - Eur J Biol Res VL - 13 IS - 2 SE - Research Articles DO - UR - http://jbrodka.com/index.php/ejbr/article/view/36 SP - 81-93 AB - <p>This work focused on the realization of a mycological and mycotoxicological study of certain foods manufactured in a traditional way (couscous and spice of <em>Capsicum annuum</em> known locally under the name of sweet hror) and marketed in the city of Bechar. The physico-chemical analyzes revealed that all the samples were poorly hydrated where the average values ​​of relative humidity ranged between 7.23% and 13.58%. For the pH, the values ​​varied between 5.22 and 6.95. The enumeration of the fungal flora indicated that the couscous samples (coarse and fine) represented a contamination rate of 2.92*10<sup>2</sup> and 1.71*10<sup>2</sup> CFU/g respectively. While, the sweet hror samples represented a higher contamination rate (4.68*10<sup>2</sup> CFU/g), with a clear dominance of the genera of <em>Aspergillus</em> (46.42%) and <em>Penicillium</em> (26.28%). Otherwise, the mycotoxicological analysis showed us that 78.55% of the <em>Aspergillus</em> isolates of the group (<em>flavus</em>-<em>parasiticus</em>) tested were producers of aflatoxins (B<sub>1</sub> and G<sub>1</sub>) and that 86.66% of the isolates of <em>A</em>. <em>ochraceus</em> and 40% of <em>Penicillium </em>species, were ochratoxin A producers. In addition, the detection of mycotoxins at the sample level revealed that 63.63% of couscous samples were contaminated with mycotoxins. While sweet hror was the most contaminated (78.57%). Furthermore, the quantification of AFB<sub>1</sub> by HPLC-FLD for 4 samples of sweet hror revealed only one contaminated sample (21.75 µg/kg). Generally, it can be admitted that the rate of contamination by AFB<sub>1</sub> was too high, which can be considered a real risk to human health.</p><p><strong>DOI: <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7860257">http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7860257</a></strong></p> ER -