Occurrence of Fusarium spp. and fumonisins in stored wheat grains marketed in Iran.

Khosrow Chehri,Kasa R N Reddy,Baharuddin Salleh,Saeed Tamadoni Jahromi,Saeed Abbasi

doi:10.3390/toxins2122816

Abstract

Wheat grains are well known to be invaded by Fusarium spp. under field and storage conditions and contaminated with fumonisins. Therefore, determining Fusarium spp. and fumonisins in wheat grains is of prime importance to develop suitable management strategies and to minimize risk. Eighty-two stored wheat samples produced in Iran were collected from various supermarkets and tested for the presence of Fusarium spp. by agar plate assay and fumonisins by HPLC. A total of 386 Fusarium strains were isolated and identified through morphological characteristics. All these strains belonged to F. culmorum, F. graminearum, F. proliferatum and F. verticillioides. Of the Fusarium species, F. graminearum was the most prevalent species, followed by F. verticillioides, F. proliferatum and then F. culmorum. Natural occurrence of fumonisin B1 (FB1) could be detected in 56 (68.2%) samples ranging from 15–155 μg/kg, fumonisin B2 (FB2) in 35 (42.6%) samples ranging from 12–86 μg/kg and fumonisin B3 (FB3) in 26 (31.7%) samples ranging from 13–64 μg/kg. The highest FB1 levels were detected in samples from Eilam (up to 155 μg/kg) and FB2 and FB3 in samples from Gilan Gharb (up to 86 μg/kg and 64 μg/kg).

Highlights

Wheat is one of the most important cereal crops for human consumption [1]
Eighty-two wheat samples produced in Iran were analyzed for the occurrence of Fusarium spp. and fumonisins
A total of 386 strains were isolated and identified using morphological characters. All these strains belonged to four Fusarium spp.; F. graminearum, F. culmorum, F. proliferatum and F. verticillioides (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Wheat is one of the most important cereal crops for human consumption [1]. Fusarium species are responsible for many economically important cereal diseases such as head blights, ear rots and stem diseases, resulting in severe reductions in crop yield by up to 40% [2]. F. graminearum, F. culmorum, F. avenaceum, F. chlamydosporum, and F. verticillioides, which are the most important Fusarium species in central Europe and in large areas in North America and Asia, reduced both crop yield and cereal quality. Fusarium spp. are well known to produce fumonisins on cereal grains when environmental conditions are favorable for their growth under field and storage conditions [3,4,5]. Fumonisins have been reported to cause diseases in humans and animals after consumption of contaminated food and feed [8]. There is an abundance of information concerning Fusarium species associated with wheat in the field [2,4,11,12,13,14], but there are few reports concerning Fusarium species associated with wheat in stored grains [14,15]

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