Mycobiota and mycotoxins in Portuguese pork, goat and sheep dry-cured hams

The objectives of the present work were to survey, for the first time, the contamination of Portuguese fresh and dry-cured meat products with ochratoxin A (OTA) and aflatoxin B 1 (AFB 1 ), and to determine the fungi potentially responsible for this contamination. A total of 128 samples including por...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Mycotoxin research 2019-11, Vol.35 (4), p.405-412
Main Authors: Rodrigues, Paula, Silva, Diana, Costa, Pedro, Abrunhosa, Luís, Venâncio, Armando, Teixeira, Alfredo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aflatoxin B1
Aflatoxins
Animals
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Chemistry/Food Science
Contamination
Food Contamination - analysis
Food Microbiology
Fungi
Fungi - classification
Fungi - isolation & purification
Goats
Leg
Legs
Life Sciences
Meat
Meat products
Medical Microbiology
Medicine/Public Health
Microbiology
Microbiota
Mycotoxins
Mycotoxins - analysis
Mycotoxins - classification
Ochratoxin A
Original Article
Penicillium
Pork
Portugal
Red Meat - microbiology
Ripening
Sheep
Shoulder
Swine
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Summary:The objectives of the present work were to survey, for the first time, the contamination of Portuguese fresh and dry-cured meat products with ochratoxin A (OTA) and aflatoxin B 1 (AFB 1 ), and to determine the fungi potentially responsible for this contamination. A total of 128 samples including pork fresh legs, dry-cured legs and shoulders, as well as goat and sheep dry-cured legs were analysed. Mycological analysis of these samples yielded a total of 630 fungal isolates. Penicillium sp. was the dominant fungal genus in all products (66% of all isolates). Penicillium nordicum and Aspergillus westerdijkiae were only rarely isolated from pork ham samples. In fresh pork meat, 40% of the samples were contaminated with OTA at levels below 1 μg/kg. In pork dry-cured legs with 20 to 25 months of ripening, 43% of the samples showed detectable contamination, while 18% of the shoulder hams were contaminated. OTA was not detected in any of the goat and sheep samples. OTA contamination does not seem to be a risk in small-piece and short-ripe products like goat and sheep legs, but affects longer ripe products like pork legs and shoulders. Although aflatoxigenic fungi were identified, AFB 1 was not detected in any sample, and it should not be considered a risk in dry-cured hams.
ISSN:0178-7888
1867-1632
DOI:10.1007/s12550-019-00374-8