occurrence of aflatoxin b1 in pistachio nuts during various preparing processes: tracing from iran

aflatoxin b1 (afb1) is a secondary metabolite produced by some aspergillus species, which haveharmful impacts on human health such as carcinogenicity, teratogenicity, acute and chronic toxicity.in this study, the occurrence of afb1 in pistachio nuts during various preparing processes wasinvestigated in two pistachio farms from qazvin province, iran, from september to november 2012.high performance detected level of afb1 and liquid chromatography (hplc) containedfluorescence detector using especial immunoaffinity columns. the results showed that afb1 waspresent in the samples (100%) in during pre-harvesting, harvesting and post-harvesting stages. thehighest mean value of afb1 (27.58±2.12 μg/kg) was found in pistachio samples after harvestingprocess. forty-six of 84 pistachio nuts (54.76%) in various process periods exceeded the maximumtolerable limit (2μg/kg) that set for afb1 by european union regulations. in addition, the resultsindicated that afb1 levels in the samples had increased over storage time (p