Occurrence of aflatoxin M1 in randomly selected North African milk and cheese samples.

Original article

English

Elgerbi AM, Aidoo KE, Candlish AA, Tester RF.

Food Research Laboratory, School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, G4 OBA, UK.

Food Addit Contam. 2004 Jun;21(6):592-7.

Abstract

Forty-nine samples of raw cow’s milk and 20 samples of fresh white soft cheese were collected directly from 20 local dairy factories in the north-west of Libya and analysed for the presence of aflatoxin M1 (AFM1). The samples were analysed using a high-performance liquid chromatography technique for toxin detection and quantification. Thirty-five of the 49 milk samples (71.4%) showed AFM1 levels between 0.03 and 3.13 ng ml(-1) milk. Multiple analyses of five milk samples free of AFM1 artificially contaminated with concentrations of AFM1 at 0.01, 0.05, 0.1, 1.0 and 3.0 ng ml(-1) showed average recoveries of 66.85, 72.41, 83.29, 97.94 and 98.25%, with coefficients of variations of 3.77, 4.11, 1.57, 1.29 and 0.54%, respectively. Fifteen of 20 white soft cheese samples (75.0%) showed the presence of AFM1 in concentrations between 0. 11 and 0.52 ng g(-1) of cheese. Multiple assays of five cheese samples free of AFM1 spiked with different concentration of AFM1 (0.1, 0.5, 1.0 and 3.0 ng g(-1)) showed average recoveries of 63.23, 78.14,83.29 and 88.68%, with coefficients of variation of 1.53, 9.90, 4.87 and 3.79%, respectively. The concentrations of AFM1 were lower in the cheese products than in the raw milk samples.

Keywords: Aflatoxin M1, Cheese, Milk, Immunoaffinity Columns, High-performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)

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