Distribution of aflatoxins and fumonisins in dry-milled maize fractions

Amedeo Pietri (1) , Marco Zanetti (1) , Terenzio Bertuzzi (1)

1 Scienze degli alimenti e della nutrizione

The aim of this study was to evaluate the distribution of aflatoxins and fumonisins in fractions derived from dry-milling processing of contaminated maize. Two maize lots with different contamination levels were processed and sampled: the first (maize 1) showed aflatoxin B₁ (AFB₁) and fumonisin B₁ (FB₁₎ levels of 3.6 and 5379 μg kg^-1, respectively; the second (maize 2) showed corresponding levels of 91.1 and 8841 μg kg^-1, respectively. The cleaning step reduced AFB₁ and FB₁ levels by 8 and 11% in maize 1 and by 57 and 34% in maize 2. The subsequent removal of bran and germ allowed a further decrease of contamination levels in products destined for human consumption. In the latter, AFB₁ was uniformly distributed, while FB₁ was concentrated in finer size fractions. Contamination of raw maize 1 (3.6 μg kg^-1) was below the EU AFB₁ limit of 5 μg kg^-1 for unprocessed maize, but among the final products only coarse flour (1.7 μg kg^-1) was within the EU limit of 2 μg kg^-1, while grits and fine flour showed higher levels (2.7 and 2.5 μg kg^-1, respectively). As regards cleaned maize, a different distribution of the two toxins was observed in the kernels: AFB₁ contamination was more superficial and concentrated in germ, while FB₁ contamination affected the inner layers of kernels.

Mots clés: Life Sciences

Amedeo Pietri, Marco Zanetti, Terenzio Bertuzzi. Distribution of aflatoxins and fumonisins in dry-milled maize fractions. Food Additives and Contaminants, 2009, 26 (03), pp.372-380. ⟨10.1080/02652030802441513⟩. ⟨hal-00577336⟩