Abstract
BackgroundThe dried parts of medicinal herbs are susceptible to the infection of fungi during pre- or post-harvest procedure. This study aimed to investigate the presence of fungi and their metabolites mycotoxins on the surface of medicinal herbs collected from China.MethodsForty-five retail samples of 15 different medicinal herbs were collected from 3 different regions in China. Then the potential fungi were immediately washed off from the surface of each sample with 0.1% Tween-20 followed by incubation of the rinse on petri-dish with potato dextrose agar containing chloramphenicol at 28 °C. The obtained fungi were isolated as single colonies and then characterized by morphology and molecular identification using internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequencing with extracted DNA. Meanwhile, the mycotoxin-producing potential of the isolates was studied by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS).ResultsA total of 126 fungi were identified from the surface of samples by morphology and ITS sequencing, with Aspergillus and Penicillium genera as the predominant contaminants. The mycotoxin-producing potential analysis showed that 6 of 8 A. versicolor isolates could produce sterigmatocystin. All 3 A. aculeatus isolates produced ochratoxin A, but only 1 of 3 A. flavus strains produced aflatoxins B1 and B2 without G1 and G2. Although the sample contamination ratios were high (≥95.6%), there was no significant difference (χ2 = 1.05, P = 1.0) among the samples from 3 regions, which demonstrates the prevalent fungal contamination in the herbal medicines.ConclusionThe prevalent contamination phenomenon of fungi and high potential risk of sterigmatocystin and ochratoxin A were observed in 45 medicinal herbs collected from China.
Highlights
The dried parts of medicinal herbs are susceptible to the infection of fungi during pre- or post-harvest procedure
This study aimed to investigate the presence of fungi on the surface of 45 medicinal herbs samples of fifteen herbs collected from Hunan, Hubei and Guangxi Province, China, by the characterization of morphology and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequencing, followed by analysis of mycotoxigenic potential of isolated fungi using LC-MS/MS for the measurement of Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), aflatoxin B2 (AFB2), aflatoxin G1 (AFG1), aflatoxin G2 (AFG2), ST and ochratoxin A (OTA)
Forty-five samples of 15 common medicinal herbs were investigated in this study to reveal the main contaminating fungi and provide some relevant references for quality control on medicinal herbs in China
Summary
The dried parts of medicinal herbs are susceptible to the infection of fungi during pre- or post-harvest procedure. This study aimed to investigate the presence of fungi and their metabolites mycotoxins on the surface of medicinal herbs collected from China. In the pre-harvest stage, medicinal herbs are susceptible to indigenous fungi in the soil where they were grown. The dried part of medicinal herbs may be exposed to fungal contamination during post-harvest. Different taxonomic groups of fungi were detected in medicinal plant samples collected from different regions, suggesting Aspergillus and Penicillium groups as the most predominant genera [6,7,8]. Many species of Aspergillus and Penicillium genera are known mycotoxin-producers, which may pose a great threat to public health [5]
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