Reduction of Aflatoxins in Apricot Kernels by Electronic and Manual Color Sorting

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Abstract

The efficacy of color sorting on reducing aflatoxin levels in shelled apricot kernels wasassessed. Naturally-contaminated kernels were submitted to an electronic optical sorter or blanched,peeled, and manually sorted to visually identify and sort discolored kernels (dark and spotted) fromhealthy ones. The samples obtained from the two sorting approaches were ground, homogenized, andanalysed by HPLC-FLD for their aflatoxin content. A mass balance approach was used to measure thedistribution of aflatoxins in the collected fractions. Aflatoxin B1 and B2 were identified and quantitatedin all collected fractions at levels ranging from 1.7 to 22,451.5 g/kg of AFB1 + AFB2, whereas AFG1and AFG2 were not detected. Excellent results were obtained by manual sorting of peeled kernelssince the removal of discolored kernels (2.6%-19.9% of total peeled kernels) removed 97.3%-99.5% oftotal aflatoxins. The combination of peeling and visual/manual separation of discolored kernels isa feasible strategy to remove 97%-99% of aflatoxins accumulated in naturally-contaminated samples.Electronic optical sorter gave highly variable results since the amount of AFB1 + AFB2 measured inrejected fractions (15%-18% of total kernels) ranged from 13% to 59% of total aflatoxins. An improvedimmunoaffinity-based HPLC-FLD method having low limits of detection for the four aflatoxins(0.01-0.05 g/kg) was developed and used to monitor the occurrence of aflatoxins in 47 commercialproducts containing apricot kernels and/or almonds commercialized in Italy. Low aflatoxin levelswere found in 38% of the tested samples and ranged from 0.06 to 1.50 g/kg for AFB1 and from 0.06to 1.79 g/kg for total aflatoxins.

Autore Pugliese

Tutti gli autori

  • R. Zivoli; L. Gambacorta; L. Piemontese; M. Solfrizzo

Titolo volume/Rivista

Toxins

Anno di pubblicazione

2016

ISSN

2072-6651

ISBN

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Numero di citazioni Wos

Nessuna citazione

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Settori ERC

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Codici ASJC

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