Abstract
Capsicum annuum grows in warm areas. Pepper production conditions require the drying of fruits by sunlight. During the drying processes, the crop is exposed to contamination by microorganisms, especially fungi. In this article, the isolation of mycobiota from retail markets and food restaurants of Taif city was studied. Crushed chili showed a high fungal load compared to chili sauce and chili powder, while chili powder showed a high occurrence of total aflatoxins (AFs). Aspergillus, Eurotium and Penicillium were the most common genera isolated from chili samples. Thirty-four samples (out of 60) were naturally contaminated with AFs ranging from 20 to 200 ppb. The total aflatoxin potential of 35 isolates of A. flavus, A. parasiticus and A. tamarri were studied. Seventy percent of A. flavus isolates were aflatoxigenic. The frequencies of aflatoxin biosynthesis genes aflR, nor-1, ver-1 and omtA were studied in aflatoxigenic and non-aflatoxigenic isolates of Aspergillus species collected in this study. All aflatoxigenic isolates (21) and 1 non-aflatoxigenic isolate of A. flavus showed DNA fragments that correspond to the complete set of the targeted genes. In conclusion, the high co-occurrence of Aspergillus species capable of producing aflatoxins, particularly in chili samples, suggests the need for more efficient control during processing and storage to reduce fungal contamination.
Highlights
This study aimed to (i) determine the mycobiota of chili offered for sale to consumers in retail stores at the Taif region in Saudi Arabia, paying special attention to the mycotoxigenic moulds; (ii) evaluate the contamination levels of aflatoxins in chili samples; (iii) detect aflatoxigenic abilities of the collected aspergilli; and (iv) evaluate the presence and frequencies of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products corresponding to amplification of aflR, nor-1, ver-1 and omtA genes in Aspergillus Flavi section isolated from chili samples
The mycobiota of different chili products marketed in Taif city (Saudi Arabia) were investigated in this study
Santos et al (2011) reported that smoked paprika samples were more contaminated with fungi than other samples (1.9×103 colony forming units (CFU)/g in DG18)
Summary
Solanaceae) is a vegetable crop grown in warm climates (Sreedhara et al, 2013). It constitutes about 34% of the spice trade in the world and the demand and consumption of the pepper increases more than 5.2% annually. The total world production of pepper was 496.19 million metric tons. Chili is an important commodity used as a vegetable, spice, medicinal herb and ornamental plant by billions of people every day (Rajeev, 2010). It is used as an ingredient in industrial products. The world production of chili crops comes to around 7 million tons that is cultivated on approximately 1.5 million hectares of land
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