Abstract
Aflatoxins (AFs) are secondary metabolites that represent serious threats to human and animal health. They are mainly produced by strains of the saprophytic fungus Aspergillus flavus, which are abundantly distributed across agricultural commodities. AF contamination is receiving increasing attention by researchers, food producers, and policy makers in China, and several interesting review papers have been published, that mainly focused on occurrences of AFs in agricultural commodities in China. The goal of this review is to provide a wider scale and up-to-date overview of AF occurrences in different agricultural products and of the distribution of A. flavus across different food and feed categories and in Chinese traditional herbal medicines in China, for the period 2000–2020. We also highlight the health impacts of chronic dietary AF exposure, the recent advances in biological AF mitigation strategies in China, and recent Chinese AF standards.
Highlights
Aflatoxins (AFs) are secondary metabolites produced by members of three distinctive sections of the genus Aspergillus: section Flavi, section Ochraceorosei, and section Nidulantes [1]
We present an update of information about AF contamination in different food commodities, AF distribution, molecular characteristics of the main AF-producing molds, AF-related health risks, and recent developments in AF biocontrol as mitigation strategies in China
The researchers found that elevated serum AFB1-alb adduct levels were significantly associated with an increased risk of developing cirrhosis and cirrhotic hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and with the risk of developing
Summary
Aflatoxins (AFs) are secondary metabolites produced by members of three distinctive sections of the genus Aspergillus: section Flavi, section Ochraceorosei, and section Nidulantes [1]. Initiatives to explore the population distribution and to characterize A. flavus strains have been undertaken in different countries of the world, including the USA, Nigeria, Italy, Argentina, Iran, and Thailand. In these studies, researchers aimed to differentiate toxigenic and atoxigenic strains among the total A. flavus population using different polyphasic sequential approaches, such as morphological, microbiological, and biochemical techniques [4,35,36,37,38,40,41,42,43]. We present an update of information about AF contamination in different food commodities, AF distribution, molecular characteristics of the main AF-producing molds, AF-related health risks, and recent developments in AF biocontrol as mitigation strategies in China.
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